'/
 
 PAWNED 
 
 FRANK L. PACKARD
 
 BY FRANK L. PACKARD 
 
 PAWNED 
 
 THE WHITE MOLL 
 
 FROM NOW ON 
 
 THE NIGHT OPERATOR 
 
 THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF 
 JIMMIE DALE 
 
 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE 
 DALE 
 
 THE WIRE DEVILS 
 
 THE SIN THAT WAS HIS 
 
 THE BELOVED TRAITOR 
 
 GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN 
 
 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 NEW YORK 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
 
 PAWNED 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANK L. PACKARD 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE WHITE MOLL," "THE NIGHT 
 OPERATOR," "THE FURTHER ADVEN- 
 TURES OF JIMMIE DALE," ETC. 
 
 NEW ^IST YORK 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1921, 
 BY FRANK L. PACKARD 
 
 PRIKTBC IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
 
 SRLf 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 By Way of Introduction 
 
 HER STORY 9 
 
 HIS STORY [TWENTY YEARS AFTER] . . 16 
 
 The Book Itself 
 
 THEIR STORY : 4 , 
 
 CHAPTER ONE: ALADDIN'S LAMP ... 41 
 
 CHAPTER TWO: THE MILLIONAIRE PLUNGER 48 
 
 CHAPTER THREE: SANCTUARY . ... . 61 
 
 CHAPTER FOUR: A DOCTOR OF MANY DE- 
 GREES 73 
 
 CHAPTER FIVE: HAWKINS ..... 93 
 
 CHAPTER SIX: THE ALIBI 101 
 
 CHAPTER SEVEN: THE GIRL OF THE TRAVEL- 
 ING PAWN-SHOP no 
 
 CHAPTER EIGHT: ALLIES . . . . . .119 
 
 CHAPTER NINE: THE CONSPIRATORS . . 129 
 
 CHAPTER TEN: AT FIVE MINUTES TO EIGHT 13* 
 
 CHAPTER ELEVEN: THE RENDEZVOUS . . 142 
 
 CHAPTER TWELVE: THE FIGHT .... 148 
 
 CHAPTER THIRTEEN: TRAPPINGS OF TINSEL 159 
 
 CHAPTER FOURTEEN: THE TWO PENS . . 170 
 v
 
 vi CONTENTS 
 
 The Book Itself (Continued) 
 
 FAGC 
 
 CHAPTER FIFTEEN: THE CLEW . . . .186 
 CHAPTER SIXTEEN : A WOLF LICKS HIS CHOPS 200 
 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: ALIAS MR. ANDERSON 207 
 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: THE HOSTAGE . . 216 
 CHAPTER NINETEEN: CABIN H 14 . . .228 
 CHAPTER TWENTY: OUTSIDE THE DOOR . 238 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: THE LAST CHANCE 245 
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO : THROUGH THE 
 
 NIGHT 264 
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: THE BEST MAN 274 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: THE RIDE 281
 
 BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION
 
 PAWNED 
 
 HER STORY 
 
 A HANSOM cab, somewhat woebegone in 
 appearance, threaded its way in a curiously 
 dejected manner through the heart of New 
 York's East Side. A fine drizzle fell, through which 
 the street lamps showed as through a mist; and, with 
 the pavements slippery, the emaciated looking horse, 
 the shafts jerking and lifting up at intervals around its 
 ears, appeared hard put to it to preserve its footing. 
 The cabman on his perch drove with his coat collar 
 turned up and his chin on his breast. He held the 
 reins listlessly, permitting the horse to choose its own 
 gait. At times he lifted the little trap door in the roof 
 of the cab and peered into the interior; occasionally his 
 hand, tentatively, hesitantly, edged toward a bulge 
 in his coat pocket only to be drawn back again in a 
 sort of panic haste. 
 
 The cab turned into a street where, in spite of the 
 drizzle, hawkers with their push-carts under flaring, 
 spitting gasoline banjoes were doing a thriving busi- 
 ness. The horse went more slowly. There was very 
 little room. With the push-carts lining the curbs on 
 both sides, and the overflow of pedestrians from the 
 sidewalks into the street, it was perhaps over-taxing 
 
 9
 
 io PAWNED 
 
 the horse's instinct to steer a safe course for the 
 vehicle it dragged behind it. Halfway along the block 
 a wheel of the hansom bumped none too gently into 
 one of the push-carts, nearly upsetting the latter. The 
 hawker, with a frantic grab, saved his wares from dis- 
 aster by an uncomfortably narrow margin, and, this 
 done, hurled an impassioned flood of lurid oratory at 
 the two-wheeler. 
 
 The cabman lifted his chin from his breast, stared 
 stonily at the hawker, slaoped the reins mechanically 
 on the roof of the cab as an intimation to the horse to 
 proceed, and the cab wended its way along again. 
 
 At the end of the block, it turned the corner, and 
 drew up before a small building that was nested in 
 between two tenements. The cabman climbed down 
 from his perch, and stood for a moment surveying the 
 three gilded balls that hung over the dingy doorway, 
 and the lettering "Paul Veniza. Pawnbroker" 
 that showed on the dully-lighted windows which con- 
 fronted him. 
 
 He drew his hand across his eyes; then, reaching 
 suddenly inside the cab, lifted a bundle in his arms, 
 and entered the shop. A man behind the counter stared 
 at him, and uttered a quick ejaculation. The cabman 
 went on into a rear room. The man from behind the 
 counter followed. In the rear room, a woman rose 
 from a table where she had been sewing, and took the 
 bundle quickly from the cabman's arms, as it emitted 
 a querrulous little cry. 
 
 The cabman spoke for the first time. 
 
 "She's dead," he said heavily. 
 
 The woman, buxom, middle-aged, stared at him, 
 white-faced, her eyes filling suddenly with tears.
 
 HER STORY n 
 
 "She died an hour ago," said the cabman, in the 
 same monotonous voice. "I thought mabbe you'd look 
 after the baby girl for a bit, Mrs. Veniza you and 
 Paul." 
 
 "Of course!" said the woman in a choked voice. 
 "I wanted to before, but but your wife wouldn't let 
 the wee mite out of her sight." 
 
 "She's dead now," said the cabman. "An hour 
 ago." 
 
 Paul Veniza, the pawnbroker, crossed to the cab- 
 man's side, and, placing his hands on the other's 
 shoulders, drew the man down into a chair. 
 
 "Hawkins," he said slowly, "we're getting on in 
 years, fifty each of us, and we've known each other 
 for a good many of those fifty." He cleared his throat. 
 "You've made a mess of things, Hawkins." 
 
 The woman, holding the baby, started suddenly for- 
 ward, a red flush dyeing her cheeks. 
 
 "Paul!" she cried out sharply. "How can you be 
 so cruel at such an hour as this?" 
 
 The pawnbroker shook his head. He had moved to 
 the back of the cabman's chair. Tall, slight, grave and 
 kindly-faced, with high forehead and the dark hair 
 beginning to silver at the temples, there seemed some- 
 thing almost esthetic about the man. 
 
 "It is the hour," he said deliberately; "the one hour 
 in which I must speak plainly to my old friend, the one 
 hour that has come into his life which may mean every- 
 thing to him." His right hand slipped from the cab- 
 man's shoulder and started, tentatively, hesitantly, 
 toward a bulge in the cabman's coat pocket but was 
 drawn back again, and* found its place once more on 
 the cabman's shoulder. "I was afraid, Hawkins, when
 
 12 PAWNED 
 
 you married the young wife. I was afraid of your 
 curse." 
 
 The cabman's elbows were on the table; he had sunk 
 his chin in his hands. His blue eyes, out of a wrinkled 
 face of wind-beaten tan, roved around the little room, 
 and rested finally on the bundle in the woman's arms. 
 
 "That's finished now," he said dully. 
 
 "I pray God it is," said Paul Veniza earnestly; 
 "but you said that before when you married the 
 young wife." 
 
 "It's finished now so help me, God!" The cab- 
 man's lips scarcely moved. He stared straight in 
 front of him. 
 
 There was silence in the little, plainly furnished 
 room for a moment; then the pawnbroker spoke 
 again : 
 
 "I was born here in New York, you know, after my 
 parents came from Italy. There was no money, noth- 
 ing only misery. I remember. It is like that, Haw- 
 kins, isn't it, where you have just come from, and 
 where you have left the young wife?" 
 
 "Paul!" his wife cried out again. "How can you 
 say such things? It it is not like you!" Her lips 
 quivered. She burst into tears, and buried her face in 
 the little bundle she snuggled to her breast. 
 
 The cabman seemed curiously unmoved as though 
 dazed, almost detached from his immediate surround- 
 ings. He said nothing. 
 
 The pawnbroker's hands still rested on the cabman's 
 shoulders, a strange gentleness in his touch that sought 
 somehow, it seemed, to offer sympathy for his own 
 merciless words. 
 
 "I have been thinking of this for a long time, ever
 
 , HER STORY 13 
 
 since we knew that Claire could not get better," he 
 said. "We knew you would bring the little one here. 
 There was no other place, except an institution. And 
 so I have been thinking about it. What is the little 
 one's name?" 
 
 The cabman shook his head. 
 
 "She has no name," he said. 
 
 "Shall it be Claire, then?" asked the pawnbroker 
 gently. 
 
 The cabman's fingers, where they rested on his 
 cheeks, gathered a fold of flesh and tightened until 
 the blood fled, leaving little white spots. He nodded 
 his head. 
 
 Again the pawnbroker was silent for a little while. 
 
 "My wife and I will take little Claire on one con- 
 dition," he said at last, gravely. "And that condition 
 is that she is to grow up as our child, and that, though 
 you may come here and see her as often as you like, 
 she is not to know that you are her father." 
 
 The cabman turned about a haggard face. 
 
 "Not to know that I am her father ever," he said 
 huskily. 
 
 "I did not say that," said Paul Veniza quietly. He 
 smiled now, leaning over the cabman. "I am a pawn- 
 broker; this is a pawn-shop. There is a way in which 
 you may redeem her." 
 
 The cabman pressed a heavy hand over his eyes. 
 
 "What is that way?" He swallowed hard as he 
 spoke. 
 
 "By redeeming yourself." The pawnbroker's voice 
 was low and earnest. "What have you to offer her 
 to-day, save a past that has brought only ruin and 
 misery? And for the future, my old friend? There
 
 i 4 PAWNED 
 
 is no home. There was no home for the young wife. 
 You said when you married Claire, as you have said 
 to-night, that it was all finished. But it was not fin- 
 ished. And your curse was the stronger. Well, little 
 Claire is only a baby, and there would be years, any- 
 how, before just a man could take care of her. Do 
 you understand, my old friend? If, at the end of those 
 years, enough of them to make sure that you are sure 
 of yourself, you have changed your life and overcome 
 your weakness, then you shall have little Claire back 
 again, and she shall know you as her father, and be 
 proud of you. But if you do not do this, then she re- 
 mains with us, and we are her parents, and you pledge 
 me your word that it shall be so." 
 
 There was no answer for a long time. The woman 
 was still crying but more softly now. The cabman's 
 chin had sunk into his hands again. The minutes 
 dragged along. Finally the cabman lifted his head, 
 and, pushing back his chair, stumbled to his feet. 
 
 "God God bless you both!" he whispered. "It's 
 all finished now for good, as I told you, but you are 
 right, Paul. I I ain't fit to have her yet. I'll stand 
 by the bargain." He moved blindly toward the door. 
 
 The pawnbroker interposed. 
 
 "Wait, Hawkins, old friend," he said. 'Til go with 
 you. You'll need some help back there in the tene- 
 ment, some one to look after the things that are to 
 be done." 
 
 The cabman shook his head. 
 
 "Not to-night," he said in a choked way. "Leave 
 me alone to-night." 
 
 He moved again toward the door, and this time 
 Paul Veniza stepped aside, but, following, stood bare-
 
 HER STORY 15 
 
 headed in the doorway as the other clambered to his 
 perch on the hansom cab. 
 
 Hawkins slapped his reins on the roof of the cab. 
 The horse started slowly forward. 
 
 The drizzle had ceased; but the horse, left to his 
 own initiative, was still wary of the wet pavements 
 and moved at no greater pace than a walk. Hawkins 
 drove with his coat collar still turned up and his chin 
 on his breast. 
 
 And horse and man went aimlessly from street to 
 street and the night grew late. 
 
 And the cabman's hand reached tentatively, hesi- 
 tantly, a great many times, toward a bulge in his coat 
 pocket, and for a great many times was withdrawn as 
 empty as it had set forth. And then, once, his fingers 
 touched a glass bottle neck . . . and then, not his fin- 
 gers, but his lips . . . and for a great many times. 
 
 It had begun to rain again. 
 
 The horse, as if conscious of the futility of its own 
 movements, had stopped, and, with head hanging, 
 seemed to cower down as though seeking even the 
 slender protection of the shafts, whose ends now made 
 half circles above his ears. 
 
 Something slipped from the cabman's fingers and 
 fell with a crash to the pavement. The cabman leaned 
 out from his perch and stared down at the shattered 
 glass. 
 
 "Broken," said the cabman vacantly.
 
 HIS STORY 
 
 TWENTY YEARS LATER 
 
 IT was silver light. Inside the reefs the water lay 
 placid and still, mirroring in a long, shimmering 
 line the reflection of the full tropic moon; beyond, 
 ever and anon, it splashed against its coral barriers in 
 little crystal showers. It was a soundless night. No 
 breeze stirred the palms that, fringing white stretches 
 of beach around the bay, stood out in serene beauty, 
 their irregular tops etched with divine artistry into the 
 sky-line of the night. 
 
 Out from the shore, in that harbor which holds no 
 sanctuary in storm, the mail boat, dark save for her 
 riding lights, swung at her moorings; shoreward, the 
 perspective altered in the moonlight until it seemed 
 that Mount Vaea had lowered its sturdy head that it 
 might hover in closer guardianship over the little town, 
 Apia straggled in white patches along the road. And 
 from these white patches, which were dwellings and 
 stores, there issued no light. 
 
 From a point on the shore nearest the mail boat, a 
 figure in cotton drawers and undershirt slipped silently 
 into the water and disappeared. Thereafter, at inter- 
 vals, a slight ripple disturbed the surface as the man, 
 coming up to breathe, turned upon his back and lay 
 with his face exposed; for the rest he swam under 
 water. It was as though he were in his natural ele- 
 
 16
 
 HIS STORY 17 
 
 ment. He swam superbly even where, there in the 
 Islands, all the natives were born to the sea; but his 
 face, when visible on the few occasions that it floated 
 above the surface, was the face, not of a native, but 
 of a white man. 
 
 And now he came up in the shadow of the steamer's 
 hull where, near the stern, a rope dangled over the 
 side, almost touching the water's edge. And for a 
 moment he hung to the rope, motionless, listening. 
 Then he began to swarm upward with fine agility, 
 without a sound, his bare feet finding silent purchase 
 against the iron plates of the hull. 
 
 Halfway up he paused and listened intently again. 
 Was that a sound as of some one astir, the soft move- 
 ment of feet on the deck above? No, there was noth- 
 ing now. Why should there be? It was very late, 
 and Nanu, the man who lisped, was no fool. The 
 rope had hung from exactly that place where, of all 
 others, one might steal aboard without attracting the 
 attention of the watch. 
 
 He went on again, and finally raised his head above 
 the rail. The deck, flooded with moonlight, lay white 
 and deserted below him. He swung himself over, 
 dropped to the deck and the next instant reeled back 
 against the rail as a rope-end, swung with brutal force, 
 lashed across his face, raising a welt from cheek to 
 cheek. Half stunned, he was still conscious that a 
 form had sprung suddenly at him from out of the 
 darkness of the after alleyway, that the form was one 
 of the vessel's mates, that the form still swung a short 
 rope-end that was a murderous weapon because it was 
 little more flexible than iron and was an inch in thick-
 
 1 8 PAWNED 
 
 ness, and that, behind this form, other forms, big 
 forms, Tongans of the crew, pressed forward. 
 
 A voice roared out, hoarse, profane, the mate's 
 voice : 
 
 ''Thought you'd try it again, did you, you damned 
 beachcomber? I'll teach you! And when I find the 
 dog that left that rope for you, I'll give him a leaf out 
 of the same book! You bloody waster I I'll teach 
 you! I'll " 
 
 The rope-end hissed as it cut through the air again, 
 aiming for the swimmer's face. But it missed its mark. 
 Perhaps it was an illusion of the white moonlight, lend- 
 ing unreality to the scene, exciting the imagination to 
 exaggerate the details, but the swimmer seemed to 
 move with incredible speed, with the lithe, terrible 
 swiftness of a panther in its spring. The rope-end 
 swished through the air, missing a suddenly lowered 
 head by the barest fraction of an inch, and then, driven 
 home with lightning-like rapidity, so quick that the 
 blows seemed as one, the swimmer's fists swung, right 
 and left, crashing with terrific impact to the point of the 
 mate's jaw. And the mate's head jolted back, quiv- 
 ered grotesquely on his shoulders for an instant like a 
 tuning fork, sagged, and the great bulk of the man 
 collapsed and sprawled inertly on the deck. 
 
 There was a shuffle of feet from the alleyway, cries. 
 The swimmer swung to face the expected rush, and it 
 halted, hesitant. It gave him time to spring and stand 
 erect upon the steamer's rail. On the upper deck faces 
 and forms began to appear. A man in pajamas leaned 
 far out and peered at the scene. 
 
 There was a shout from out of the dark, grouped 
 throng in the alleyway; it was chorused. The rush
 
 HIS STORY 19 
 
 came on again for the rail; and the dripping figure that 
 stood there, with the first sound that he had made a 
 laugh, half bitter, half of cool contempt turned, and 
 with a clean dive took the water again and disappeared. 
 
 Presently he reached the shore. There were more 
 than riding lights out there on the steamer now. He 
 gave one glance in that direction, shrugged his shoul- 
 ders, and started off along the road. At times he 
 raised his hand to brush it across his face where the 
 welt, raw and swollen now, was a dull red sear. He 
 walked neither fast nor slow. 
 
 The moonlight caught the dripping figure now and 
 then in the open spaces, and seemed to peer inquisi- 
 tively at the great breadth of shoulder, and the rippling 
 play of muscle under the thin cotton drawers and shirt, 
 which, wet and clinging, almost transparent, scarce hid 
 the man's nakedness; and at the face, that of a young 
 man, whose square jaw was locked, whose gray eyes 
 stared steadily along the road, and over whose fore- 
 head, from the drenched, untrimmed mass of fair hair, 
 the brine trickled in little rivulets as though persistent 
 in its effort to torture with its salt caress the raw, 
 skin-broken flesh across the cheeks. 
 
 Then presently a point of land ran out, and, 
 the road ignoring this, the bay behind was shut out 
 from view. And presently again, farther on, the road 
 came to a long white stretch of beach on the one hand, 
 and foliage and trees on the other. And here the 
 dripping figure halted and stood hesitant as though 
 undecided between the moonlit stretch of sand, and the 
 darkness of a native hut that was dimly outlined 
 amongst the trees on the other side of the road. 
 
 After a moment he made his way to the hut and,
 
 20 PAWNED 
 
 groping around, secured some matches and a box of 
 cigarettes. He spoke into the empty blackness. 
 
 "You lose, Nanu," he muttered whimsically. "They 
 wouldn't stand water and I left them for you. But 
 now, you see, I'm back again, after all." 
 
 He lighted a cigarette, and in the flame of the match 
 stared speculatively at the small, broken pieces of coral 
 that made the floor of the hut, and equally, by the addi- 
 tion of a thin piece of native matting, his bed. 
 
 "The sand is softer," he said with a grim drawl. 
 
 He went out from the hut, crossed the road, flung 
 himself upon his back on the beach, and clasped his 
 hands behind his head. The smoke from his cigarette 
 curled languidly upward in wavering spirals, and he 
 stared for a long time at the moon. 
 
 "Moon madness," he said at last. "They say if you 
 look long enough the old boy does you in." 
 
 The cigarette finished, he flung the stub away. After 
 a time, he raised his head and listened. A moment 
 later he lay back again full length on the sand. The 
 sound of some one's footsteps coming rapidly along 
 the road from the direction of the town was now un- 
 mistakably audible. 
 
 "The jug for mine, I guess," observed the young 
 man to the moon. "Probably a file of native constabu- 
 lary in bare feet that you can't hear bringing up the 
 rear!" 
 
 The footsteps drew nearer, until, still some distance 
 away, the white-clad figure of a man showed upon the 
 tree-fringed road. The sprawled figure on the beach 
 made no effort toward flight, and less toward conceal- 
 ment. With a sort of studied insolence injected into 
 his challenge, he stuck another cigarette between his
 
 HIS STORY 21 
 
 lips and deliberately allowed full play to the flare of 
 the match. 
 
 The footsteps halted abruptly. Then, in another 
 moment, they crunched upon the sand, and a tall man, 
 with thin, swarthy face, a man of perhaps forty or 
 forty-five, who picked assiduously at his teeth with a 
 quill toothpick, stood over the recumbent figure. 
 
 "Found you, have I?" he grunted complacently. 
 
 "If you like to put it that way," said the young man 
 indifferently. He raised himself on his elbow again, 
 and stared toward the road. "Where's the army?" 
 he inquired. 
 
 The tall man allowed the point of the quill tooth- 
 pick to flex and strike back against his teeth. The 
 sound was distinctive. Tck! He ignored the ques- 
 tion. 
 
 "When the mate came out of dreamland," he said, 
 "he lowered a boat and came ashore to lay a complaint 
 against you." 
 
 "I can't say I'm surprised," admitted the young man. 
 "I suppose I am to go with you quietly and make no 
 trouble or it will be the worse for me I believe that's 
 the usual formula, isn't it?" 
 
 The man with the quill toothpick sat down on the 
 sand. He appeared to be absorbed for a moment in a 
 contemplation of his surroundings. 
 
 "These tropic nights are wonderful, aren't they? 
 Kind of get you." He plied the quill toothpick indus- 
 triously. "I'm a passenger on the steamer, and I came 
 ashore with the mate. He's gone back without lay- 
 ing the complaint. There's always a way of fixing 
 things even injured feelings. One of the native 
 boat's-crew said he knew where you were to be found.
 
 22 PAWNED 
 
 He's over there." He jerked his head in the direction 
 of the road. 
 
 The young man sat bolt upright. 
 
 "I don't get you," he said slowly, "except that you 
 are evidently not personifying the majesty of the law. 
 What's the idea?" 
 
 "Well," said the other, "I had three reasons for 
 coming. The first was that I thought I recognized 
 you yesterday when they threw you off the steamer, 
 and was sure of it to-night when I am a light sleeper 
 I came out on the upper deck at the sound of the 
 row and saw you take your departure from the vessel 
 for the second time." 
 
 "I had no idea," said the young man caustically, 
 "that I was so well known. Are you quite sure you 
 haven't made a mistake?" 
 
 "Quite!" asserted the other composedly. "Of 
 course, I am not prepared to say what your present 
 name is you may have considered a change beneficial 
 so I will not presume in that respect. But you are, 
 or were, a resident of San Francisco. You were very 
 nice people there. I have no knowledge of your 
 mother, except that I understand she died in your in- 
 fancy. A few years ago your father died and left you, 
 not a fortune, but quite a moderate amount of money. 
 I believe the pulpits designate it as a 'besetting sin.' 
 You had one gambling. The result was that you 
 traveled the road a great many other young men have 
 traveled; the only difference being that, in so far as 
 I am competent to speak, you hold the belt for speed 
 and all-round proficiency. You went utterly, com- 
 pletely and whole-heartedly to hell." The tall man 
 became absorbed again in his surroundings. "And I
 
 HIS STORY 23 
 
 take it," he said presently, "that in spite of the won- 
 ders of a tropic night, you are still there." 
 
 The young man shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "You have put it very delicately," he said, with a 
 grim smile. "I'm sorry, but I am obliged to confess 
 that the recognition isn't mutual. Would you mind 
 telling me who you are?" 
 
 "We'll get to that in due course," said the other. 
 "My second reason was that it appeared to me to be 
 logical to suppose that, having once been the bona fide 
 article, you could readily disguise yourself as a gentle- 
 man again, and your interpretation of the role would 
 be beyond suspicion or " 
 
 "By God!" The welt across the young man's face 
 grew suddenly white, as though the blood had fled 
 from it to suffuse his temples. He half rose, staring 
 levelly into the other's eyes. 
 
 The tall man apparently was quite undisturbed. 
 
 "And the third reason is that I have been looking 
 for just such a there really isn't any other word 
 gentleman, providing he was possessed of another and 
 very essential characteristic. You possess that charac- 
 teristic in a most marked degree. Your actions to- 
 night are unmistakable evidence that you have nerve." 
 
 "It strikes me that you've got a little of it yourself," 
 observed the young man evenly. 
 
 The quill toothpick under the adroit guidance of his 
 tongue traveled from the left- to the right-hand side 
 of the other's mouth. 
 
 "It is equally as essential to me," he said dryly. 
 "You appear to fill the bill; but there is always the 
 possibility of a fly in the ointment; complications er 
 unpleasant complications, perhaps, you know, that
 
 24 PAWNED 
 
 might have arisen since you left San Francisco, and 
 that might er complicate matters." 
 
 The young man relapsed into a recumbent position 
 upon the sand, his hands clasped under his head again, 
 and in his turn appeared to be absorbed in the beauty 
 of the night. 
 
 "Moon-madness!" he murmured pityingly. 
 
 "A myth!" said the tall man promptly. "Would 
 you mind sketching in roughly the details of your inter- 
 esting career since you left the haunts of the aristoc- 
 racy?" 
 
 "I don't see any reason why I should." The young 
 man yawned. 
 
 "Do you see any reason why you shouldn't?" in- 
 quired the other composedly. 
 
 "None," said the young man, "except that the 
 steamer sails at daybreak, and I should never forgive 
 myself if you were left behind." 
 
 "Nor forgive yourself, perhaps, if you failed to sail 
 on her as a first-class passenger," said the tall man 
 quietly. 
 
 "What?" ejaculated the young man sharply. 
 
 The other shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "It depends on the story," he said. 
 
 "I I don't understand." The young man frowned. 
 "There's a chance for me to get aboard the mail 
 boat?" 
 
 "It depends on the story," said the other again. 
 
 "Moon-mad!" murmured the young man once more, 
 after a moment's silence. "But it's cheap at the price, 
 for it's not much of a story. Beginning where you left 
 off in my biography, I ducked when the crash came in 
 San Francisco, and having arrived in hell, as you so
 
 HIS STORY 25 
 
 delicately put it, I started out to explore. Mr. Dante 
 had it right there's no use stopping in the suburbs. 
 I lived a while in his last circle. It's too bad he never 
 knew the 'Frisco water-front; it would have fired his 
 imagination! I'm not sure, though, but Honolulu's 
 got a little on 'Frisco, at that I Luck was out. I was 
 flat on my back when I got a chance to work my way 
 out to Honolulu. One place was as good as another 
 by then." 
 
 The young man lit a cigarette, and stared at the 
 glowing tip reminiscently with his gray eyes. 
 
 "You said something about gambling," he went on; 
 "but you didn't say enough. It's a disease, a fever 
 that sets your blood on fire, and makes your life kind 
 of delirious, I guess if you get it chronic. I guess I 
 was born with it. I remember when I was a kid I but 
 I forgot, pardon me, the mail boat sails at daybreak." 
 
 "Go as far as you like," said the tall man, picking 
 at his teeth with the quill toothpick. 
 
 The young man shook his head. 
 
 "Honolulu is the next stopping place," he said. "On 
 the way out I picked up a few odd dollars from my 
 fellow-members of the crew, and " 
 
 "Tck!" It was the quill toothpick. 
 
 The young man's eyes narrowed, and his jaw set 
 challengingly. 
 
 "Whatever else I've done," he stated in a signifi- 
 cant monotone, "I've never played crooked. It was 
 on the level." 
 
 "Of course," agreed the tall man hastily. 
 
 "I sat in with the only stakes I had," said the young 
 man, still monotonously. "A bit of tobacco, a rather
 
 26 PAWNED 
 
 good knife that I've got yet, and a belt that some one 
 took a fancy to as being worth half a dollar." 
 
 "Certainly! Of course!" reiterated the tall man in 
 haste. 
 
 The quill toothpick was silent. 
 
 "A pal of mine, one of the stokers, said he knew of 
 a good place to play in Honolulu where there was a 
 square deal," continued the young man; "so, a night 
 or so after we reached there, we got shore leave and 
 started off. Perhaps you know that part of Honolulu. 
 I don't. I didn't see much of it. I know there's some 
 queer dumps, and queer doings, and the scum of every 
 nationality under the sun to run up against. And I 
 know it was a queer place my mate steered me into. 
 It was faro. The box was run by an old Chinaman 
 who looked as though he were trying to impersonate 
 one of his ancestors, he was so old. My mate and I 
 formed the English-speaking community. There were 
 a Jap or two, and a couple of pleasant-looking cut- 
 throats who cursed in Spanish, and a Chink lying on a 
 bunk rolling his pill. Oh, yes, the place stunk ! Every 
 once in a while the door opened and some other God- 
 forsaken piece of refuse drifted in. By midnight we 
 had a full house of pretty bad stuff. 
 
 "It ended in a row, of course. Some fool of a tout 
 came in chaperoning a party of three men, who were 
 out to see the sights; they were passengers, I found 
 out later, from one of the ships in port. I don't know 
 what started the rumpus; some private feud, I guess. 
 The first thing I knew one of the Spaniards had a knife 
 out and had jumped for the tout. It was a free-for- 
 all in a minute. I saw the tout go down, and he didn't 
 look good, and the place suddenly struck me as a
 
 HIS STORY 27 
 
 mighty unhealthy place to be found in on that account. 
 The stoker and I started to fight our way through the 
 jam to the door. There was a row infernal. I guess 
 you could have heard it a mile away. Anyway, before 
 we could break from the clinches, as it were, the police 
 were fighting their way in just as eagerly as we were 
 fighting our way out. 
 
 "I didn't like the sight of that tout lying on the 
 floor, or the thought of what might happen in the 
 police court the next morning if I were one of the 
 crowd to adorn the dock. And things weren't going 
 very well. The police were streaming in through the 
 doorway. And then I caught sight of something I 
 hadn't seen before because it had previously been hid- 
 den by a big Chinese screen one of those iron-shut- 
 tered windows they seem so fond of down there. 
 Things weren't very rosy just at that moment because 
 about the worst hell-cat scramble on record was being 
 made a little worse by some cheerful maniac starting 
 a bit of revolver practice, but I remember that I 
 couldn't help laughing to save my soul. In the melee 
 one of the folding wings of the screen had suddenly 
 doubled up, and, besides the window, I saw hiding be- 
 hind there for dear life, his face pasty-white with 
 terror, a very courageous gentleman one of the 
 rubbernecks who had come in with the tout. He was 
 too scared, I imagine, even to have the thought of 
 tackling such formidable things as iron shutters enter 
 his head. I yelled to the stoker to get them open, and 
 tried to form a sort of rear guard for him while he 
 did it. Then I heard them creak on their hinges, and 
 heard him shout. I made a dash for it, but I wasn't 
 quite quick enough. One of the policemen grabbed
 
 28 PAWNED 
 
 me, but I was playing in luck then. I got in a fortu- 
 nate swing and he went down for the count I remem- 
 ber toppling the screen and the man behind it over on 
 the floor as I jumped sideways for the window; and I 
 remember a glimpse of his terrorized face, his eyes 
 staring at me, his mouth wide open, as I took a head- 
 long dive over the window sill. The stoker picked me 
 up, and we started on the run. 
 
 "The police were scrambling through the window 
 after us. I didn't need to be told that there wouldn't 
 be a happy time ahead if I were caught. Apart from 
 that tout who, though I had nothing to do with it, 
 gave the affair a very serious aspect, I was good for 
 the limit on the statute books for resisting arrest in 
 the first place, and for knocking out an officer in the 
 second. But the stoker knew his way about. We gave 
 the police the slip, and a little later on we landed up 
 in a sailors' boarding-house run by a one-eyed cousin 
 of Satan, known as Lascar Joe. We lay there hidden 
 while the tout got better; and the Spanish hidalgo got 
 sent up for a long term for murderous assault. 
 Finally Lascar Joe slipped the stoker aboard some 
 ship; and a week or so later he slipped me, the trans- 
 fer being made in the night, aboard a frowsy tramp 
 bound for New Zealand." 
 
 The young man paused, evidently inviting comment. 
 
 "Go on," prompted the man with the quill tooth- 
 pick softly. 
 
 "There isn't very much more," said the young man. 
 He laughed shortly. "As far as I know I'm the sole 
 survivor from that tramp. She never got to New 
 Zealand; and that's how I got here to Samoa. She 
 went down in a hurricane. I was washed ashore on
 
 HIS STORY 29 
 
 one of this group of islands about forty or fifty miles 
 from here. I don't know much about the details; I 
 was past knowing anything when the bit of wreckage 
 on which I had lashed myself days before came to port. 
 There weren't any I was going to say white people 
 on the island, but I'm wrong about that. The Samo- 
 ans are about the whitest people on God's green earth. 
 I found that out. There were only natives on that 
 island. I lived with them for about two -months, and 
 I got to be pretty friendly with them, especially the 
 old fellow who originally picked me up half drowned 
 and unconscious on the beach, and who took me into 
 the bosom of his family. Then the missionary boat 
 came along, and I came back with it to Apia here." 
 
 The young man laughed again suddenly, a jarring 
 note in his mirth. 
 
 "I don't suppose you've heard that original remark 
 about the world being such a small place after all! 
 I figured that back here in Apia a shipwrecked and 
 destitute white man would get the glad hand and at 
 least a chance to earn his stake. Maybe he would 
 ordinarily; but I didn't. I hadn't said anything to the 
 missionary about that Honolulu escapade, and I was 
 keeping it dark when I got here and started to tell the 
 shipwreck end of my story over again. Queer, isn't it? 
 Lined up in about the first audience I had was the 
 gentleman with the pasty face that I had toppled over 
 with the screen in the old Chink's faro dump. He was 
 one of the big guns here, and had been away on a 
 pleasure trip, and Honolulu had been on his itinerary. 
 That settled it. The missionary chap spoke up a bit 
 for me, I'll give him credit for that, though I had a 
 hunch he was going to use that play as an opening
 
 30 PAWNED 
 
 wedge in an effort to reform me later on. But I had 
 my fingers crossed. The whites here turned their backs 
 on me, and I turned my back on the missionary. That's 
 about all there was to it. That was about two weeks 
 ago, and for those two weeks I've lived in another of 
 Mr. Dante's delightful circles." 
 
 He sat suddenly upright, a clenched fist flung out- 
 ward. 
 
 "Not a cent I Not a damned sou-marquee! Noth- 
 ing but this torn shirt, and what's left of these cotton 
 pants! Hell!" 
 
 He lay back on the sand quite as suddenly again, 
 and fell to laughing softly. 
 
 "Tck!" It was the quill toothpick. 
 
 "But at that," said the young man, "I'm not sure 
 you could call me a cynic, though the more I see of 
 my own breed as compared with the so-called heathen 
 the less I think of my own breed! I still had a card 
 up my sleeve. I had a letter of introduction to a real 
 gentleman and landed proprietor here. His name was 
 Nanu, and he gave me his house to live in, and made 
 me free of his taro and his breadfruit and all his 
 worldly possessions ; and it was the old native who took 
 care of me on the other island that gave me the letter. 
 It was a queer sort of letter, too but never mind that 
 now. 
 
 "Splendid isolation! That's me for the last two 
 weeks as a cross between a pariah and a mangy cur! 
 What amazes me most is myself. The gentleman of 
 the Chinese screen is still in the land of the living and 
 walking blithely around. Funny, isn't it? That's one 
 reason I was crazy to get away before anything 
 happened to him." The tanned fist closed fiercely over
 
 HIS STORY 31 
 
 a handful of sand, then opened and allowed the grains 
 to trickle slowly through the fingers, and its owner 
 laughed softly again. "I've lived through hell here in 
 those two weeks. I guess we're only built to stand so 
 much. I was about at the end of my rope when the 
 mail steamer put in yesterday. I hope I haven't ideal- 
 ized my sojourn here in a way that would cause you to 
 minimize my necessity for getting away, no matter to 
 where or by what means! Nanu and I went out to the 
 ship in his outrigger. Perhaps I would have had bet- 
 ter luck if I had run into any other than the particular 
 mate I did. I don't know. I offered to work my pass- 
 age. Perhaps my fame had already gone abroad or 
 aboard. He invited me to make another excursion into 
 Dante-land. But when he turned his back on me I 
 slipped below, and tucked myself in behind some of 
 the copra sacks they were loading. Once the steamer 
 was away I was away with her, and I was willing to 
 take what was coming. But I didn't get a chance. 
 I guess the mate was sharper than I gave him credit 
 for. After about four hours of heat and stink down 
 there below decks that I had to grit my teeth to stand, 
 he hauled me out as though he knew I had been there 
 all the time. I was thrown off the steamer. 
 
 "But I wasn't through. Steamers do not call here 
 every day. I wonder if you'll know what I mean when 
 I say I was beginning to be afraid of myself and what 
 might happen if I had to stick it out much longer? 
 That mangy cur I spoke of had me lashed to the mast 
 from a social standpoint. I tried it again to-night. 
 Nanu fixed it for me with one of the crew to hang that 
 rope over the side, and well, I believe you said you 
 had seen what happened. I believe you said, too, that
 
 32 PAWNED 
 
 a chance still existed of my sailing with the mail boat, 
 depending upon my story." He laughed a little rau- 
 cously. "I hope it's been interesting enough to bail 
 me out; anyway, that's all of it." 
 
 The tall man sat for a moment in silence. 
 
 "Yes," he said at last; "I am quite satisfied. 
 Dressed as a gentleman, with money in your pockets, 
 and such other details as go with the role, you would 
 never be associated with that affair in Honolulu. As a 
 matter of fact your share in it was not so serious that 
 the police would dog you all over the world on account 
 of it. In other words, and what really interests me, 
 is that you are not what is commonly designated as a 
 'wanted' man. Yes, I may say I am thoroughly sat- 
 isfied." 
 
 The young man yawned and stretched himself. 
 
 "I'm delighted to hear it. I haven't any packing to 
 do. Shall we stroll back to the ship?" 
 
 "I hope so." The quill toothpick was busy again. 
 "The decision rests with you. I am not a philan- 
 thropist. I am about to offer you a situation to fill 
 which I have been searching a good many years to find 
 some one who had the necessary qualifications. I am 
 satisfied you are that man. You do not know me ; you 
 do not know my name, and though you have already 
 asked what it is, I shall still withhold that information 
 until your decision has been given. If you agree, I 
 will here and now sign a contract with you to which we 
 will both affix our bona fide signatures; if you refuse, 
 we will shake hands and part as friends and strangers 
 who have been shall we use your expression? moon- 
 mad under the influence of the wonders of a tropic 
 night."
 
 HIS STORY 33 
 
 "Something tells me," said the young man softly, 
 "that the situation is not an ordinary one." 
 
 "And you are right," replied the other quietly. "It 
 is not only not ordinary, but is, I think I may safely 
 say, absolutely unique and without its counterpart. I 
 might mention in passing that I am not in particularly 
 good health, and the sea voyage I was ordered to take 
 explains my presence here. I am the sole owner of one 
 of the largest, if not the largest, business enterprises 
 in America; certainly its turn-over, at least, is beyond 
 question the biggest on the American continent. I have 
 establishments in every city of any size in both the 
 United States and Canada and even in Mexico. The 
 situation I offer you is that of my confidential repre- 
 sentative. No connection whatever will be known to 
 exist between us ; your title will be that of a gentleman 
 of leisure but your duties will be more arduous. I 
 regret to say that in many cases I fear my local man- 
 agers are not er making accurate returns to me, 
 and they are very hard to check up. I would require 
 you to travel from place to place as a sort of, say, 
 secret inspector of branches, and furnish me with the 
 inside information from the lack of which my business 
 at present, I am afraid, is suffering severely." 
 
 "And that business?" The young man had raised 
 himself to his elbow on the sand. 
 
 "The one that is nearest to your heart," said the 
 tall man calmly. "Gambling." 
 
 The young man leaned slowly forward, staring at the 
 other. 
 
 "I wonder if I quite get you?" he said. 
 
 "I am sure you do." The tall man smiled. "My 
 business is a chain of select and exclusive gambling
 
 34 PAWNED 
 
 houses where only high play is indulged in, and whose 
 clientele is the richest in the land." 
 
 The young man rose to his feet, walked a few steps 
 away along the beach, and came back again. 
 
 "You're devilishly complimentary!" he flung out, 
 with a short laugh. "As I understand it, then, the price 
 I am to pay for getting away from here is the pawning 
 of my soul?" 
 
 "Have you anything else to pawn?" inquired the 
 other and the quill toothpick punctuated the remark: 
 "Tck!" 
 
 "No," said the young man, with a twisted smile. 
 "And I'm not sure I've got that left! I am beginning 
 to have a suspicion that it was in your 'branch' at San 
 Francisco that I lost my money." 
 
 "You did," said the other coolly. "That is how I 
 came to know you. Though not personally in evidence 
 in the 'house' itself, San Francisco is my home, and my 
 Information as to what goes on there at least is fairly 
 accurate." 
 
 The young man resumed his pacing up and down 
 the sand. 
 
 "And I might add," said the tall man after a mo- 
 ment, "that from a point of ethics I see little difference 
 in the moral status between one who comes to gamble 
 and one who furnishes the other with the opportunity 
 to do so. You are perhaps hesitating to take the hur- 
 dle on that account?" 
 
 "Moral status!" exclaimed the young man sharply. 
 He halted abruptly before the other. "No at least 
 I am not a hypocrite! What right have I to quarrel 
 with moral status?" 
 
 "Very well, then," said the other; "I will go far-
 
 HIS STORY 35 
 
 ther. I will give you everything in life that you desire. 
 You will live as a gentleman of wealth surrounded by 
 every luxury that money can procure, for that is your 
 role. You may gamble to your heart's content, ten, 
 twenty, fifty thousand a night in my houses. You 
 will travel the length and breadth of America. I will 
 pay every expense. There is nothing that you may not 
 have, nothing that you may not do." 
 
 The young man was silent for a full minute; then, 
 with his hands dug in his pockets, he fell to whistling 
 under his breath very softly but very deliberately. 
 
 An almost sinister smile spread over the tall man's 
 lips as he listened. 
 
 "If I am not mistaken," he observed dryly, "that 
 is the aria from Faust." 
 
 "Yes," said the young man and stared the other 
 in the eye. "It is the aria from Faust." 
 
 The tall man nodded but now his lips were 
 straight. 
 
 "I accept the role of Mephistopheles, then," he said 
 softly. "Doctor Faustus, you know, signed the bond." 
 
 The young man squatted on the sand again. His 
 face was curiously white ; only the ugly welt, dull red, 
 across his cheeks, like the mark of some strange 
 branding-iron, held color. 
 
 "Then, draw it!" he said shortly. "And be damned 
 to you !" 
 
 The tall man took a notebook and a fountain pen 
 from his pocket. He wrote rapidly, tore out the leaf, 
 and on a second leaf made a copy of the first. This, 
 too, he tore out. 
 
 "I will read it," he said. "You will observe that 
 no names are mentioned; that I have still reserved the
 
 36 PAWNED 
 
 privilege of keeping my identity in abeyance until the 
 document is signed. This is what I have written: 
 For good and valid consideration the second signatory 
 to this contract hereby enters unreservedly Into the 
 employ of the first signatory for a period which shall 
 Include the lifetime of one or other of the undersigned, 
 or until such time as this agreement may be dissolved 
 either by mutual consent or at the will of the first 
 signatory alone. And the first signatory to this con- 
 tract agrees to maintain the second signatory In a sta- 
 tion In life commensurate with that of a gentleman of 
 wealth Irrespective of expense, and further to pay to 
 the second signatory as a stated salary the sum of one 
 thousand dollars a month." He looked up. "Shall 
 I sign?" 
 
 "Body and soul," murmured the young man. He 
 appeared to be fascinated with the restless movement 
 of the quill toothpick in the other's mouth. "Have you 
 another toothpick you could let me have?" he inquired 
 casually. 
 
 The tall man mechanically thrust his fingers into his 
 vest pocket; and then, as though but suddenly struck 
 with the irrelevancy, and perhaps facetiousness, of the 
 request, frowned as he found himself handing over the 
 article in question. 
 
 "Shall I sign?" His tone was sterner. "It is under- 
 stood that the signatures are to be bona fide and " 
 
 "Yes, sign it. It is quite understood." The young 
 man spoke without looking up. He seemed to be 
 engrossed in carefully slitting the point of the quill 
 toothpick he had acquired with his knife. 
 
 The other signed both sheets from the notebook. 
 
 The young man accepted the two slips of paper, but
 
 HIS STORY 37 
 
 refused the proffered fountain pen. In the moonlight 
 he read the other's signature: Gilbert Larmon. His 
 lips tightened a little. It was a big name in San 
 Francisco, a name of power. Few dreamed perhaps 
 where the sinews of that power came from! He drew 
 from his pocket a small bottle, uncorked it, dipped in 
 the quill toothpick, and with his improvised pen wrote 
 with a rasping, spluttering noise beneath the other's 
 signature on each of the two slips of paper. One of 
 these slips he returned to the other but beneath the 
 tall man's signature there was no mark of any kind 
 whatever. 
 
 Through narrowing eyes the tall man had been 
 watching, and now his face darkened ominously, and 
 there was something of deadly coolness in his voice as 
 he spoke. 
 
 "What tomfoolery is this?" he demanded evenly. 
 
 "No; it's quite all right," said the young man 
 placidly. "Just a whim of mine. I can't seem to get 
 that Doctor Faustus thing out of my head. According 
 to the story, I think, he signed in a drop of blood 
 and I thought I'd carry a sort of analogy along a bit. 
 That stuff's all right. I got it from my old native 
 friend on that island I was telling you about. It's 
 what my letter of introduction to Nanu was written, 
 with. And well, at least, I guess it stands for the 
 drop of blood, all right I Take it down there to the 
 shore and dip that part of the paper in the salt water." 
 
 The tall man made no answer. For a moment he 
 remained staring with grim-set features at the other, 
 then he got up, walked sharply to the water's edge, 
 and, bending down, moistened the lower portion of the 
 paper. He held it up to the moonlight. Heavy black
 
 38 PAWNED 
 
 letters were slowly taking form just beneath his own 
 signature. Presently he walked back up the beach to 
 the young man, and held out his hand. 
 
 "Let us get back to the ship John Bruce," he said.
 
 THE BOOK ITSELF
 
 THEIR STORY 
 
 ALADDIN'S LAMP 
 
 JOHN BRUCE, stretched at full length on a 
 luxurious divan in the most sumptuous apartment 
 of the Bayne-Miloy, New York's newest and 
 most pretentious hostelry, rose suddenly to his feet 
 and switched off the lights. The same impulse carried 
 him in a few strides to the window. The night was 
 still, and the moon rode high and full. It was the 
 same moon that, three months ago, he had stared at 
 from the flat of his back on the beach at Apia. A 
 smile, curiously tight, and yet curiously whimsical, 
 touched his lips. If it had been "moon-madness" that 
 had fallen upon the gambler king and himself that 
 night, it had been a madness that was strangely free 
 in its development from hallucination ! That diagnosis 
 no longer held. It would be much more apposite to 
 lay it bluntly to the door of Mephistopheles ! From 
 the moment he had boarded the mail steamer he had 
 lived as a man possessed of unlimited wealth, as a man 
 with unlimited funds always in his possession or at his 
 instant command. 
 
 He whistled softly. It was, though, if not moon- 
 madness, perhaps the moon, serene and full up there 
 
 41
 
 42 PAWNED 
 
 as it had been that other night, which he had been 
 watching from the divan a few moments before, that 
 had sent his mind scurrying backward over those inter- 
 vening months. And yet, perhaps not ; for there would 
 come often enough, as now, moments of mind groping, 
 yes, even the sense of hallucination, when he was not 
 quite sure but that a certain bubble, floating at one 
 moment in dazzlingly iridescent beauty before his eyes, 
 would dissolve the next into blank nothingness, 
 
 and Well, what would it be then? Another 
 
 beach at some Apia, until another Mephistopheles, in 
 some other guise, came to play up against his role of 
 Doctor Faustus again? 
 
 He looked sharply behind him around the darkened 
 room, whose darkness did not hide its luxury. His 
 shoulder brushed the heavy silken portiere at his side ; 
 his fingers touched a roll of banknotes in his pocket, 
 a generous roll, whose individual units were of denom- 
 inations more generous still. These were realities! 
 
 Mephistopheles at play! He had left Larmon at 
 Suva, Fiji. Thereafter, their ways and their lives lay 
 apart outwardly. Actually, even here in New York 
 with the continent between them, for Larmon had 
 resumed his life in which he played the role of a 
 benevolent and retired man of wealth in San Francisco, 
 they were in constant and extremely intimate touch 
 with each other. 
 
 A modern Mephistopheles I Two men only in the 
 world knew Gilbert Larmon for what he was! One 
 other besides himself! And that other was a man 
 named Maldeck, Peter Maldeck. But only one man 
 knew him, John Bruce, in his new role, and that was 
 Gilbert Larmon. Maldeck was the manager of the
 
 ALADDIN'S LAMP 43 
 
 entire ring of gambling houses, and likewise the clear- 
 ing house through which the profits flowed into 
 Larmon's coffers ; but to Maldeck, he, John Bruce, was 
 exactly what he appeared to be to the world at large, 
 and to the local managers of the gambling houses in 
 particular a millionaire plunger to whom gambling 
 was as the breath of life. The "inspector of branches" 
 dealt with Gilbert Larmon alone, and dealt confi- 
 dentially and secretively over Maldeck's head even 
 that invisible writing fluid supplied by the old Samoan 
 Islander playing its part when found necessary, for it 
 had been agreed between Larmon and himself that 
 even the most innocent appearing document received 
 from him, John Bruce, should be subjected to the salt 
 water test; and he had, indeed, already used it in sev- 
 eral of the especially confidential reports that he had 
 sent Larmon on some of the branches. 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. The whole scheme of 
 his changed existence had all been artfully simple 
 and superbly efficient. He was under no necessity to 
 explain the source of his wealth except in his native 
 city, San Francisco, where he was known and San 
 Francisco was outside his jurisdiction. With both 
 Larmon and Maldeck making that their headquarters, 
 other supervision of the local "branch" was superflu- 
 ous ; elsewhere, his wealth was inherited that was all. 
 So, skipping San Francisco, he had come leisurely cast- 
 ward, gambling for a week or two weeks, as the case 
 might be, in the various cities, following as guidance 
 apparently but the whim of his supposedly roue inclina- 
 tions, and he had lost a lot of money which would 
 eventually find its way back to its original source in 
 the pockets of Gilbert Larmon, via the clearing house
 
 44 PAWNED 
 
 conducted by Peter Maldeck. It was extremely simple 
 but, equally, extremely systematic. The habitues of 
 every branch were carefully catalogued. He had only 
 and casually to make the acquaintance of one of 
 these in each city, and, in turn, quite inevitably, would 
 follow an introduction to the local "house" ; and, once 
 introduced, the entree, then or on any subsequent visit 
 to that city, was an established fact. 
 
 John Bruce laughed suddenly, softly, out into the 
 night. It had been a good bargain that he had made 
 with Mephistopheles ! Wealth, luxury, everything he 
 desired in life was his. On the trail behind him in the 
 cities he had already visited he had nightly lost or won 
 huge sums of money until he had become known as the 
 millionaire plunger. It was quite true that, in as much 
 as the money, whether lost or won, but passed from his 
 right- to his left-hand pocket the pockets being repre- 
 sented by one Gilbert Larmon the gambler craving 
 within him was but ill served, almost in a sense mocked; 
 but that phase of it had sunk into insignificance. The 
 whole idea was a gigantic gamble a gamble with life. 
 The whole fabric was of texture most precarious. It 
 exhilarated him. Excitement, adventure, yes, even 
 peril, beckoned alluringly and always from around the 
 corner just ahead. He stood against the police; he 
 stood a very excellent chance of being discovered some 
 morning minus his life if the men he was set to watch, 
 and who now fawned upon him and treated him with 
 awe and an unholy admiration, should get an inkling 
 of his real identity and his real purpose in their houses ! 
 
 He yawned, and as though glorying in his own 
 strength flexed his great shoulders, and stretched his 
 arms to their full length above his head. God, it was
 
 ALADDIN'S LAMP 45 
 
 life ! It made of him a superman. He had no human 
 ties to bind him; no restraint to know; no desire that 
 could not be satiated. The past was wiped away. It 
 was like some reincarnation in which he stood supreme 
 above his fellow men, and they bowed to their god. 
 And he was their god. And if he but nodded approval 
 they would lie, and cheat, and steal, and commit mur- 
 der in their greed of worship, they whose souls were in 
 pawn to their god ! 
 
 He turned suddenly from the window, switched on 
 the lights, drew from his pocket a great sum of money 
 in banknotes, and stood staring at it. There were 
 thousands in his hand. Thousands and thousands! 
 Money ! The one universally-orthodox god ! For but 
 one of these pieces of paper in his hand he could com- 
 mand what he would, play upon human passions at his 
 whim, and like puppets on a stage of his own setting 
 move the followers of the Great Creed, that were 
 numbered in their millions, at his will! It was only 
 over the few outcasts, the unbelievers, that he held no 
 sway. But he could afford to ignore the minority! 
 Was he not indeed a god? 
 
 And it had cost him nothing. Only the pawning of 
 his soul; and, like Faustus, the day of settlement was 
 afar off. Only the signing of a bond that postulated a 
 denial of what he had already beforehand held in light 
 esteem a code of canting morals. It was well such 
 things were out of the way! Life stretched the fuller, 
 the rosier, the more red-blooded before him on that 
 account. He was well content. The future lured him. 
 Nor was it money alone. There was the spice of 
 adventure, the battle of wits, hardly inaugurated yet, 
 between himself and those whose underground meth-
 
 46 PAWNED 
 
 ods were the raison d'etre of his own magically 
 enhanced circumstances. 
 
 John Bruce replaced the money in his pocket 
 abruptly, and frowned. That was something, from 
 still another standpoint, which he could not afford to 
 lose sight of. He had to justify his job. Gilbert 
 Larmon had stated that he was not a philanthropist, 
 and it was written in the bond that Larmon could 
 terminate the agreement at will. Yes, and that was 
 queer, too! What kind of a man was Larmon? He 
 knew Larmon, as Larmon superficially subjected him- 
 self to inspection and speculation; but he was fully 
 aware that he did not know Larmon the man. There 
 seemed something almost sinister in its inconsistency 
 that Larmon should at one and the same time reserve 
 the right to terminate that bond at will while his very 
 signature upon it furnished a weapon which, if he, John 
 Bruce, chose to use it, placed the other at his mercy. 
 What kind of a man was Larmon? No fool, no weak- 
 ling that was certain. And yet at a word he, John 
 Bruce, could tear the other from the pseudorighteous 
 pedestal upon which he posed, strip the other naked of 
 the garments that clothed his criminal activities, and 
 destroy utterly the carefully reared structure of 
 respectability that Larmon had built up around him- 
 self. It might be very true that he, John Bruce, would 
 never use such a weapon, even under provocation; but 
 Larmon could not be sure of that. How then did 
 Larmon reconcile his reservation to terminate the con- 
 tract at will and yet furnish his co-signatory with the 
 means of black-mailing him into a continuance of it? 
 What kind of a man was Larmon? What would he 
 be like with his back to the wall? What other reserva-
 
 ALADDIN'S LAMP 47 
 
 tion had been in Larmon's mind when he had drawn 
 that bond? 
 
 And then a queer and bitter smile came to John 
 Bruce's lips. The god of money! Was he so sure 
 that he was the god and not the worshiper? Was 
 that it? Was that what Larmon counted upon? that 
 only a fool would risk the sacrifice of the Aladdin's 
 lamp that had been thrust into his hands, and that only 
 a fool but would devote body and soul to Larmon's 
 interests under the circumstances! 
 
 The smile grew whimsical. It was complimentary in 
 a sense. It was based on the premise that he, John 
 Bruce, was not a fool. He shrugged his shoulders. 
 Well, therein Larmon was right. It would not be his, 
 John Bruce's, fault if anything short of death termi- 
 nated the bond which had originated that tropic night 
 on the moon-lit beach in Samoa three months ago ! 
 
 He looked at his watch. It was nine o'clock. It was 
 still early for play; but it was not so early that his 
 arrival in the New York "branch," where he had been 
 a constant visitor for the last four nights, could possi- 
 bly arouse any suspicion, and one's opportunities for 
 inside observation were very much better when the play 
 was desultory and but few present than in the crowded 
 rooms of the later hours. 
 
 "If I were in England now," said John Bruce, 
 addressing the chandelier, as he put on a light coat 
 over his evening clothes, I couldn't get away with 
 this without a man to valet me and at times, though 
 he might be useful, he might be awkward. Damned 
 awkward! But in America you do, or you don't, as 
 you please and I don't!"
 
 THE MILLIONAIRE PLUNGER 
 
 JOHN BRUCE left the hotel and entered a taxi. 
 A little later, in that once most fashionable 
 section of New York, in the neighborhood of 
 Gramercy Square, he was admitted to a stately 
 mansion by a white-haired negro butler, who bowed 
 obsequiously. 
 
 Thereafter, for a little while, John Bruce wan- 
 dered leisurely from room to room in the mag- 
 nificently appointed house, where in the rich car- 
 pets the sound of footsteps was lost, where bronzes and 
 paintings, exquisite in their art, charmed the eye, where 
 soft-toned draperies and portieres were eloquent of 
 refinement and good taste; he paused for a moment at 
 the threshold of the supper room, whose table was a 
 profusion of every delicacy to tempt the palate, where 
 wines of a vintage that was almost priceless were to 
 be had at no greater cost than the effort required to 
 lift a beckoning finger to the smiling ebony face of old 
 Jake, the attendant. And here John Bruce extended 
 a five-dollar bill, but shook his head as the said Jake 
 hastened toward him. Later, perhaps, he might re- 
 visit the room when a few hours' play had dimmed 
 the recollection of his recent dinner, and his appetite 
 was again sharpened. 
 
 In the card rooms there were, as yet, scarcely any 
 
 48
 
 THE MILLIONAIRE PLUNGER 49 
 
 "guests." He chatted pleasantly with the "dealers" 
 John Bruce, the millionaire plunger, was persona grata, 
 almost effusively so, everywhere in the house. 
 Lavergne, the manager, as Parisian as he was immacu- 
 late from the tips of his patent-leathers to the tips of 
 his waxed mustache, joined him; and for ten minutes, 
 until the other was called away, John Bruce proceeded 
 to nourish the already extremely healthy germ of inti- 
 macy that, from the first meeting, he had planted 
 between them. 
 
 With the manager's million apologies for the unpar- 
 donable act of tearing himself away still sounding in 
 his ears, John Bruce placidly resumed his wanderings. 
 The New York "branch," which being interpreted 
 meant Monsieur Henri de Lavergne, the exquisite 
 little manager, was heavily underscored on Gilbert 
 Larmon's black-list! 
 
 The faint, musical whir of the little ivory ball from 
 the roulette table caught John Bruce's attention, and he 
 strolled in that direction. Here a "guest" was already 
 at play. The croupier smiled as John Bruce ap- 
 proached the table. John Bruce smiled pleasantly in 
 return, and sat down. After a moment, he began to 
 make small five-dollar bets on the "red." His fellow- 
 player was plunging heavily and losing. Also, the 
 man was slightly under the influence of liquor. The 
 croupier's voice droned through half a dozen plays. 
 John Bruce continued to make five-dollar bets. The 
 little by-play interested him. He knew the signs. 
 
 His fellow-player descended to the supper room for 
 another drink, it being against the rules of the house 
 to serve anything in the gambling rooms. The 
 croupier laughed as he glanced at the retreating figure
 
 50 PAWNED 
 
 and then at another five-dollar bet that John Bruce 
 pushed upon the "red." 
 
 "He'll rob you of your reputation, Mr. Bruce, if 
 you don't look outl" the croupier smiled quizzically. 
 "Are you finding a thrill in playing the minimum for a 
 change?" 
 
 "Just feeling my way." John Bruce returned the 
 smile. "It's a bit early yet, isn't it?" 
 
 The other player returned. He continued to bet 
 heavily. He made another excursion below stairs. 
 Other "guests" drifted into the room, and the play 
 became more general. 
 
 John Bruce increased his stakes slightly, quite indif- 
 ferent naturally as to whether he lost or won since 
 he could neither lose nor win. He was sitting beside 
 the player he had originally joined at the table, and 
 suddenly his interest in the other became still more 
 enlivened. The man, after a series of disastrous plays, 
 was palpably broke, for he snatched off a large dia- 
 mond ring from his finger and held it out to the 
 croupier. 
 
 "Give me 'hicl somethin' on that," he hic- 
 coughed. "Might as well make a clean-up, eh?" 
 
 The croupier took the ring, examined it critically 
 for an instant, and handed it back. 
 
 "I'm sorry," he said; "but you know the rules of the 
 house. I couldn't advance anything on it if it were 
 worth a million. But the stone's valuable, all right. 
 You'd better take a trip to Persia." 
 
 The man replaced the ring with some difficulty upon 
 his finger, and stared owlishly at the croupier. 
 
 "T' hell with your hie! trip to Persia I" he said
 
 THE MILLIONAIRE PLUNGER 51 
 
 thickly. "Don't like Persia 1 Been hie! there 
 before ! Guess I'll go home !" 
 
 The man negotiated his way to the door; the game 
 went on. John Bruce began to increase his stakes 
 materially. A trip to Persia 1 What, exactly, did that 
 mean? It both piqued his curiosity and stirred his 
 suspicions. He smiled as he placed a heavy stake upon 
 the table. It would probably be a much more expen- 
 sive trip to this fanciful Persia than to the Persia of 
 reality, for it seemed that one must go broke first! 
 Well, he would go broke though it would require 
 some little finesse for John Bruce, the millionaire 
 plunger, to attain that envious situation without excit- 
 ing suspicion. He was very keenly interested in this 
 personally conducted tour, obviously inaugurated by 
 that exquisite little man, Monsieur Paul de Lavergne ! 
 
 John Bruce to his inward chagrin won. He began 
 to play now with a zest, eagerness and excitement 
 which, heretofore, the juggling of Mephistopheles' 
 money had deprived him of. Outwardly, however, the 
 calm impassiveness that, in the few evenings he had 
 been in the house, had already won him the reputation 
 of being par excellence a cool and nervy plunger, 
 remained unchanged. 
 
 He continued to win for a while ; and then suddenly 
 he began to lose. This was much better! He lost 
 steadily now. He staked with lavish hand, playing 
 numerous long chances for the limit at every voyage of 
 the clicking little ivory ball. Finally, the last of his 
 visible assets were on the table, and he leaned forward 
 to watch the fall of the ball. He was already fingering 
 the magnificent jeweled watch- fob that dangled from 
 the pocket of his evening clothes.
 
 52 PAWNED 
 
 "Zero!" announced the croupier. 
 
 The "zero" had been one of his selections. The 
 "zero" paid 35 for i. 
 
 A subdued ripple of excitement went up from around 
 the table. The room was filling up. The still-early 
 comers, mostly spectators for the time being, lured to 
 the roulette table at the whisper that the millionaire 
 plunger was out to-night to break the bank, were whet- 
 ting their own appetites in the play of Mr. John Bruce, 
 who had obviously just escaped being broke himself by 
 a very narrow margin. 
 
 John Bruce smiled. He was in funds again more 
 so than pleased himl 
 
 "It's a 'zero' night, Mr. Croupier," observed John 
 Bruce pleasantly. "Roll her again!" 
 
 But now luck was with John Bruce. The "zero" and 
 his other combinations were as shy and elusive as 
 fawns. At the expiration of another half hour the net 
 result of John Bruce's play consisted in his having 
 transferred from his own keeping into the keeping of 
 the New York branch thirty thousand dollars of 
 Mephistopheles' money. He was to all appearances 
 flagrantly broke as far as funds in his immediate pos- 
 session were concerned. 
 
 "I guess," said John Bruce, with a whimsical smile, 
 "that I didn't bring enough with me. I don't know 
 where I can get any more to-night, and oh, here!" 
 He laughed with easy grace, as he suddenly tossed his 
 jeweled watch-fob to the croupier. "One more fling 
 anyhow I've still unbounded faith in 'zero' ! Let me 
 have a thousand on that. It's worth about two." 
 
 The croupier, as on the previous occasion, examined 
 the article, but, as before, shook his head.
 
 THE MILLIONAIRE PLUNGER 53 
 
 "I'm awfully sorry, Mr. Bruce, but it's strictly 
 against the rules of the house," he said apologetically. 
 "I can fix it for you easily enough though, if you care 
 to take a trip to Persia." 
 
 "A trip to Persia?" inquired John Bruce in a puzzled 
 way. "I think I heard you suggest that before this 
 evening. What's the idea?" 
 
 Some of those around the table were smiling. 
 
 "It's all right," volunteered a player opposite, with 
 a laugh. "Only look out for the conductor!" 
 
 "Shoot!" said John Bruce nonchalantly. "That's 
 good enough! You can book my passage, Mr. 
 Croupier." 
 
 The croupier called an attendant, spoke to him, and 
 the man left the room. 
 
 "It will take a few minutes, Mr. Bruce while you 
 are getting your hat and coat. The doorman will let 
 you know," said the croupier, and with a bow to John 
 Bruce resumed the interrupted game. 
 
 John Bruce strolled from the room, and descended 
 to the lower floor. He entered the supper room, and 
 while old Jake plied him with delicacies he saw the 
 doorman emerge from the telephone booth out in the 
 hall, hurry away, and presently return, talking ear- 
 nestly with Monsieur Henri de Lavergne. The man- 
 ager, in turn, entered the booth. 
 
 Monsieur Henri de Lavergne came into the supper 
 room after a moment. 
 
 "In just a few minutes, Mr. Bruce there will be a 
 slight delay," he said effusively. "Too bad to keep you 
 waiting." 
 
 "Not at all!" responded John Bruce. He held a
 
 54 PAWNED 
 
 wine glass up to the light. "This is very excellent, 
 Monsieur de Lavergne." 
 
 Monsieur Henri de Lavergne accepted the compli- 
 ment with a gratified bow. 
 
 "Mr. Bruce is very kind to say so," he said and 
 launched into an elaborate apology that Mr. Bruce 
 should be put to any inconvenience to obtain the finan- 
 cial accommodation asked for. The security that Mr. 
 Bruce offered was unquestioned. It was not that. It 
 was the rule of the house. Mr. Bruce would under- 
 stand. 
 
 Mr. Bruce understood perfectly. 
 
 "Quite so!" he said cordially. 
 
 Monsieur Henri de Lavergne excused himself, and 
 left the room. 
 
 "A fishy, clever little crook," confided John Bruce 
 to himself. "I wonder what's the game?" 
 
 He continued to sip his wine in apparent indifference 
 to the passing minutes, nor was his indifference alto- 
 gether assumed. His mind was quite otherwise occu- 
 pied. It was rather neat, that a trip to Persia. The 
 expression in itself held a lure which had probably not 
 been overlooked as an asset. It suggested Bagdad, 
 and the Arabian Nights, and a Caliph and a Grand 
 Vizier who stalked about in disguise. On the other 
 hand, the inebriated gentleman had evidently had his 
 fill of it on one occasion, and would have no more of 
 it. And the other gentleman who had, as it were, 
 indorsed the proceeding, had, at the same time, taken 
 the occasion to throw out a warning to beware of the 
 conductor. 
 
 John Bruce smiled pleasantly into his wine glass. 
 Not very difficult to fathom, perhaps, after all I It
 
 THE MILLIONAIRE PLUNGER 55 
 
 was probably some shrewd old reprobate with usurious 
 rates in cahoots with the sleek Monsieur Henri de 
 Lavergne, who made a side-split on the said rates in 
 return for the exclusive privilege accorded the other of 
 acting as leech to the guests of the house when in 
 extremity. 
 
 It had been perhaps twenty minutes since he had left 
 the roulette table. He looked at his watch now as he 
 saw the doorman coming toward the supper room with 
 his hat and coat. The night was still early. It was a 
 quarter to eleven. 
 
 He went out into the hall. 
 
 "Yassuh," said the gray-haired and obsequious old 
 darky, as he assisted John Bruce into his coat, "if yo'all 
 will just come with me, Mistuh Bruce, yo'all will be 
 'commodated right prompt." 
 
 John Bruce followed his guide to the doorstep. 
 
 The darky pointed to a dosed motor car at the 
 curb by the corner, a few houses away, 
 
 "Yo'all just say 'Persia' to the shuffer, Mistuh 
 Bruce, and " 
 
 "All right!" John Bruce smiled his interruption, 
 and went down the steps to the sidewalk. 
 
 John Bruce approached the waiting car leisurely, 
 scrutinizing it the while; and as he approached, it 
 seemed to take on more and more the aspect of a 
 venerable and decrepit ark. The body of the car was 
 entirely without light; the glass front, if there were 
 one, behind the man whom he discerned sitting in the 
 chauffeur's seat, was evidently closely curtained; and 
 so, too, he now discovered as he drew nearer, were 
 the windows and doors of the car as well. 
 
 "The parlor looks a little ominous," said John
 
 56 PAWNED 
 
 Bruce softly to himself. "I wonder how far it is to 
 the spider's dining room?" 
 
 He halted as he reached the vehicle. 
 
 "I'm bound for Persia, I believe," he suggested 
 pleasantly to the chauffeur. 
 
 The chauffeur leaned out, and John Bruce was con- 
 scious that he was undergoing a critical inspection. In 
 turn he looked at the chauffeur, but there was very 
 little light. The car seemed to have chosen a spot as 
 little disturbed by the rays of the street lamps as pos- 
 sible, and he gained but a vague impression of a red, 
 weather-beaten face, clean shaved, with shaggy brows 
 under grizzled hair, the whole topped by an equally 
 weather-beaten felt hat of nondescript shape and 
 color. 
 
 The inspection, on the chauffeur's part at least, ap- 
 peared to be satisfactory. 
 
 "Yes, sir," said the man. "Step in, sir, please." 
 
 The door swung open just how, John Bruce could 
 not have explained. He stepped briskly into the car 
 only to draw back instinctively as he found it al- 
 ready occupied. But the door had closed behind him. 
 It was inky black in the interior now with the door 
 shut. The car was jolting into motion. 
 
 "Pardon me !" said John Bruce a little grimly, and 
 sat down on the back seat. 
 
 A woman! He had just been able to make out a 
 woman's form as he had stepped in. It was clever 
 damned clever! Of both the exquisite Monsieur 
 Henri de Lavergne and the money-lending spider at 
 the other end of this pleasant little jaunt into unex- 
 plored Persia! A woman in it a luring, painted, 
 fair and winsome damsel, no doubt to make the usuri-
 
 THE MILLIONAIRE PLUNGER 57 
 
 ous pill of illegal interest a little sweeter! Oh, yes, 
 he quite understood now that warning to beware of 
 the conductor! 
 
 "I did not anticipate such charming company," said 
 John Bruce facetiously. "Have we far to go?" 
 
 There was no answer. 
 
 Something like a shadow, deeper than the surround- 
 ing blackness, seemed to pass before John Bruce's eyes, 
 and then he sat bolt upright, startled and amazed. In 
 front of him, let down from the roof of the car, was 
 a small table covered with black velvet, and suspended 
 some twelve inches above the table, throwing the glow 
 downward in a round spot of light over the velvet 
 surface, was a shaded electric lamp. A small white 
 hand, bare of any ornament, palm upward, lay upon 
 the velvet table-top under the play of the light. 
 
 A voice spoke now softly from beside him : 
 
 "You have something to pawn?" 
 
 John Bruce stared. He still could not see her face. 
 
 "Er yes," he said. He frowned in perplexity. 
 "When we get to Persia, alias the pawn-shop." 
 
 "This is the pawn-shop," she answered. "Let me 
 see what you have, please." 
 
 "Well, I'm da " John Bruce checked himself. 
 
 There was a delicacy about that white hand resting 
 there under the light that rebuked him. "Er pardon 
 me," said John Bruce. 
 
 He felt for his jeweled watch-fob, unfastened it, 
 and laid it in the extended palm. He laughed a little to 
 himself. On with the game! The lure was here, all 
 right; the stage setting was masterly and now the 
 piper would be paid on a basis, probably, that would
 
 58 PAWNED 
 
 relegate Shylock himself to the kindergarten class of 
 money lenders! 
 
 And then, suddenly, it seemed to John Bruce as 
 though his blood whipping through his veins was afire. 
 A face in profile, bending forward to examine the dia- 
 monds and the setting of the fob-pendant, came under 
 the light. He gazed at it fascinated. It was the most 
 beautiful face he had ever seen. His eyes drank in 
 the rich masses of brown, silken hair, the perfect 
 throat, the chin and lips that, while modelled in sweet 
 womanliness, were still eloquent of self-reliance and 
 strength. He had thought to see a pretty face, a 
 little brazen perhaps, and artfully powdered and 
 rouged; what he saw was a vision of loveliness that 
 seemed to personify the unsullied, God-given fresh- 
 ness and purity of youth. 
 
 He spoke involuntarily; no power of his could have 
 kept back the words. 
 
 "My God, you are wonderful 1" he exclaimed in a 
 low voice. 
 
 He saw the color swiftly tinge the throat a coral 
 pink, and mount upwards ; but she did not look at him. 
 Her eyes! He wanted to see her eyes to look into 
 them! But she did not turn her head. 
 
 "You probably paid two thousand dollars for this," 
 she said quietly, "and " 
 
 "Nineteen hundred," corrected John Bruce mechan- 
 ically. 
 
 "I will allow you seventeen hundred on it, then," 
 she said, still quietly. "The interest will be at seven 
 per cent. Do you wish to accept the offer?" 
 
 Seventeen hundred! Seven per cent! It was in
 
 THE MILLIONAIRE PLUNGER 59 
 
 consonance with the vision! His mind was topsy- 
 turvy. He did not understand. 
 
 "It is very liberal," said John Bruce, trying to con- 
 trol his voice. "Of course, I accept." 
 
 The shapely head nodded. 
 
 He watched her spellbound. The watch-fob had 
 vanished, and in its place now under the little conical 
 shaft of light she was swiftly counting out a pile of 
 crisp, new, fifty-dollar banknotes. To these she added 
 a stamped and numbered ticket. 
 
 "You may redeem the pledge at any time by mak- 
 ing application to the same person to whom you origi- 
 nally applied for a loan to-night," she said, as she 
 handed him the money. "Please count it." 
 
 Her head was in shadow now. He could no 
 longer even see her profile. She was sitting back in 
 her corner of the car. 
 
 "I I am quite satisfied," said John Bruce a little 
 helplessly. 
 
 "Please count it," she insisted. 
 
 With a shrug of protest, John Bruce obeyed her. 
 It was not at all the money that concerned him, nor 
 the touch of it that was quickening his pulse. 
 
 "It is quite correct," he said, putting money and 
 ticket in his pocket. He turned toward her. "And 
 now " 
 
 His words ended in a little gasp. The light was 
 out. In the darkness that shadow passed again before 
 his eyes, and he was conscious that the table had van- 
 ished also that the car had stopped. 
 
 The door opened. 
 
 "If you please, sir!" It was the chauffeur, holding 
 the door open.
 
 6o PAWNED 
 
 John Bruce hesitated. 
 
 "I_er look here!" he said. "I " 
 
 "If you please, sir!" There was something of sig- 
 nificant finality in the man's patient and respectful 
 tones. 
 
 John Bruce smiled wryly. 
 
 "Well, at least, I may say good-night," he said, as 
 he backed out of the car. 
 
 "Certainly, sir good-night, sir," said the chauffeur 
 calmly and closed the door, and touched his hat, and 
 climbed back to his seat. 
 
 John Bruce glared at the man. 
 
 "Well, I'm damned!" said John Bruce fervently.
 
 Ill . 
 
 SANCTUARY 
 
 THE car started off. It turned the corner. 
 John Bruce looked around him. He was 
 standing on precisely the same spot from 
 which he had entered the car. He had been driven 
 around the block, that was all I 
 
 He caught his breath. Was it real? That won- 
 drous face which, almost as though at the touch of 
 some magician's wand, had risen before him out of 
 the blackness! His blood afire was leaping through 
 his veins again. That face ! 
 
 He ran to the corner and peered down the street. 
 The car was perhaps a hundred yards away and sud- 
 denly John Bruce started to run again, following the 
 car. Madness! His lips had set grim and hard. 
 Who was she that prowled the night in that bizarre 
 traveling pawn-shop? Where did she live? Was it 
 actually the Arabian Nights back again? He laughed 
 at himself not mirthfully. But still he ran on. 
 
 The car was outdistancing him. Fool! For a 
 woman's face! Even though it were a divine sym- 
 phony of beauty! Fool? Love-smitten idiot? Not 
 at all! It was his job! Nice sound to that word in 
 conjunction with that haunting memory of loveliness 
 job! 
 
 The traveling pawn-shop turned into Fourth Av- 
 
 6r
 
 62 PAWNED 
 
 enue, and headed downtown. John Bruce caught the 
 sound of a street car gong, spurted and swung breath- 
 lessly to the platform of a car going in the same di- 
 rection. 
 
 Of course, it was his job ! The exquisite Monsieur 
 Henri de Lavergne was mixed up in this. 
 
 "Hell!" 
 
 The street car conductor stared at him. John Bruce 
 scowled. He swore again but this time under his 
 breath. It brought a sudden wild, unreasonable rage 
 and rebellion, the thought that there should be any- 
 thing, even of the remotest nature, between the glori- 
 ous vision in that car and the mincing, silken-tongued 
 manager of Larmon's gambling hell. But there was, 
 for all that, wasn't there? How else had she come 
 there? It was the usual thing, wasn't it? And be- 
 ware of the conductor! The warning now appeared 
 to be very apt ! And how well he had profited by it ! 
 A fool chasing a siren's beauty! 
 
 His face grew very white. 
 
 "John Bruce," he whispered to himself, "if I could 
 get at you I'd pound your face to pulp for that!" 
 
 He leaned out from the platform. The traveling 
 pawn-shop had increased its speed and was steadily 
 leaving the street car behind. He looked back in the 
 opposite direction. The street was almost entirely de- 
 serted as far as traffic went. The only vehicle in sight 
 was a taxi bowling along a block in the rear. He 
 laughed out again harshly. The conductor eyed him 
 suspiciously. 
 
 John Bruce dropped off the car, and planted him- 
 self in the path of the on-coming taxi. Call it his job, 
 then, if it pleased him! He owed it to Larmon to
 
 SANCTUARY 63 
 
 get to the bottom of this. How extremely logical he 
 was ! The transaction in the traveling pawn-shop had 
 been so fair-minded as almost to exonerate Monsieur 
 Henri de Lavergne on the face of it, and if it had not 
 been for a certain vision therein, and a fire in his own 
 veins, and a fury at the thought that even her ac- 
 quaintance with the gambling manager was profanity, 
 he could have heartily applauded Monsieur Henri de 
 Lavergne for a unique and original 
 
 The taxi bellowed at him, hoarsely indignant. 
 
 John Bruce stepped neatly to one side and jumped 
 on the footboard. 
 
 "Here, you! What the hell!" shouted the chauf- 
 feur. "You " 
 
 "Push your foot on it a little," said John Bruce 
 calmly. "And don't lose sight of that closed car 
 ahead." 
 
 "Lose sight of nothin' !" yelled the chauffeur. "I've 
 got a fare, an' " 
 
 "I hear him," said John Bruce composedly. He 
 edged in beside the chauffeur, and one of the crisp, 
 new, fifty-dollar banknotes passed into the latter's pos- 
 session. "Keep that car in sight, and don't make it 
 hopelessly obvious that you are following it. I'll at- 
 tend to your fare." 
 
 He screwed around in his seat. An elderly, gray- 
 whiskered gentleman, a patently irate gentleman, was 
 pounding furiously on the glass panel. 
 
 "We should be turnin' down this street we're just 
 passin'," grinned the chauffeur. 
 
 John Bruce lowered the panel. 
 
 "What's the meaning of this?" thundered the fare. 
 
 "I'm very sorry, sir," said John Bruce respectfully.
 
 64 PAWNED 
 
 "A little detective business." He coughed. It was 
 really quite true. His voice became confidential. 
 "The occupants of that car ahead got away from me. 
 I I want to arrest one of them. I'm very sorry to 
 put you to any inconvenience, but it couldn't be helped.. 
 There was no other way than to commandeer your 
 taxi. It will be only for a matter of a few minutes." 
 
 "It's preposterous!" spluttered the fare. "Out- 
 rageous! I I'll " 
 
 "Yes, sir," said John Bruce. "But there was noth- 
 ing else I could do. You can report it to headquarters, 
 of course." 
 
 He closed the panel. 
 
 "Fly-cop not!" said the chauffeur, with his tongue 
 in his cheek. "Any fly-cop that ever got his mitt on a 
 whole fifty-dollar bill all at one time couldn't be pried 
 lose from it with a crowbar!" 
 
 "It lets you out, doesn't it?" inquired John Bruce 
 pleasantly. "Now let's see you earn it." 
 
 "I'll earn it!" said the chauffeur with unction. "You 
 leave it to me, boss!" 
 
 The quarry, in the shape of the traveling pawn- 
 shop, directed its way into the heart of the East Side. 
 Presently it turned into a hiving, narrow street, where 
 hawkers with their push-carts in the light of flaring, 
 spitting gasoline banjoes were doing a thriving busi- 
 ness. The two cars went more slowly now. There 
 was very little room. The taxi almost upset a fish 
 vendor's wheeled emporium. The vendor was eloquent 
 fervently so. But the chauffeur's eyes, after an im- 
 personal and indifferent glance at the other, returned 
 to the car ahead. The taxi continued on its way, trail- 
 ing fifty yards in the rear of the traveling pawn-shop.
 
 SANCTUARY 65 
 
 At the end of the block the car ahead turned the 
 corner. As the taxi, in turn, rounded the corner, John 
 Bruce saw that the traveling pawn-shop was drawn up 
 before a small building that was nested in between two 
 tenements. The blood quickened in his pulse. The 
 girl had alighted, and was entering the small building. 
 
 "Hit it up a little to the next corner, turn it, and let 
 me off there," directed John Bruce. 
 
 "I get you !" said the chauffeur. 
 
 The taxi swept past the car at the curb. Another 
 minute and it had swung the next corner, and was 
 slowing down. John Bruce jumped to the ground be- 
 fore the taxi stopped. 
 
 "Good-night!" he called to the chauffeur. 
 
 He waved his hand debonairly at the scowling, 
 whiskered visage that was watching him from the in- 
 terior of the cab, and hurriedly retraced his way back 
 around the corner. 
 
 The traveling pawn-shop had turned and was driv- 
 ing away. John Bruce moderated his pace, and saun- 
 tered on along the street. He smiled half grimly, half 
 contentedly to himself. The "trip to Persia" had led 
 him a little farther afield than Monsieur Henri de 
 Lavergne had perhaps counted on or than he, John 
 Bruce, himself had, either ! But he knew now where 
 the most glorious woman he had ever seen in his life 
 lived, or, at least, was to be found again. No, it 
 wasn't the moon! To him, she was exactly that. And 
 he had not seen her for the last time, either I That 
 was what he was here for, though he wasn't so mad 
 as to risk, or, rather, invite an affront to begin with 
 by so bald an act as to go to the front door, say, and 
 ring the bell which would be tantamount to inform-
 
 66 PAWNED 
 
 ing her that he had er played the detective from 
 the moment he had left her in the car. To-morrow, 
 perhaps, or the next day, or whenever fate saw fit to 
 be in a kindly mood, a meeting that possessed all the 
 hall-marks of being quite inadvertent offered him high 
 hopes. Later, if fate still were kind, he would tell 
 her that he had followed her, and what she would be 
 thoroughly justified in misconstruing now, she might 
 then accept as the tribute to her that he meant it 
 to be when she knew him better. 
 
 John Bruce was whistling softly to himself. 
 
 He was passing the house now, his scrutiny none the 
 less exhaustive because it was apparently casual. It 
 was a curious little two-story place tucked away be- 
 tween the two flanking tenements, the further one of 
 which alone separated the house from the corner he 
 was approaching. Not a light showed from the front 
 of the house. Yes, it was quite a curious place! Al- 
 though curtains were on the lower front windows, in- 
 dicating that it was purely a dwelling, the windows 
 themselves were of abnormal size, as though, origi- 
 nally perhaps, the ground floor had once been a shop 
 of some kind. 
 
 John Bruce turned the corner, and from a compara- 
 tively deserted street found himself among the vend- 
 ors' push-carts and the spluttering gasoline torches 
 again. He skirted the side of the tenement that made 
 the corner, discovered the fact that a lane cut in from 
 the street and ran past the rear of the tenement, which 
 he mentally noted must likewise run past the rear of 
 the little house that was now so vitally interesting to 
 him and halted on the opposite side of the lane to 
 survey his surroundings. Here a dirty and uninviting
 
 SANCTUARY 67 
 
 cafe attracted his attention, which, if its dingy sign 
 were to be believed, was run by one Palasco Ratti, a 
 gentleman of parts in the choice of wines which he 
 offered to his patrons. John Bruce surveyed Palasco 
 Ratti's potential clientele the street was full of it; 
 the shawled women, the dark-visaged, ear-ringed men. 
 He smiled a little to himself. No probably not the 
 half-naked children who sprawled in the gutter and 
 crawled amongst the push-carts' wheels! How was 
 it that she should ever have come to live in a neigh- 
 borhood to which the designation "foreign," as far as 
 she was concerned, must certainly apply in particu- 
 larly full measure? It was strange that she 
 
 John Bruce's mental soliloquy came to an abrupt 
 end. Half humorously, half grimly his eyes were 
 riveted on the push-cart at the curb directly opposite 
 to him, the proprietor of which dealt in that brand of 
 confection so much in favor on the East Side a great 
 slab of candy from which, as occasion required, he cut 
 slices with a large carving knife. A brown and grimy 
 fist belonging to a tot of a girl of perhaps eight or 
 nine years of age, who had crept in under the push- 
 cart, was stealthily feeling its way upward behind the 
 vendor's back, its objective being, obviously, a gener- 
 ous piece of candy that reposed on the edge of the 
 push-cart. There was a certain fascination in watching 
 developments. It was quite immoral, of course, but 
 his sympathies were with the child. It was a gamble 
 whether the grimy little hand would close on the 
 coveted prize and disappear again victorious, or 
 whether the vendor would turn in time to frustrate the 
 raid. 
 
 The tot's hand crept nearer and nearer its goal.
 
 68 PAWNED 
 
 No one, save himself of the many about, appeared to 
 notice the little cameo of primal instinct that was on 
 exhibition before them. The small and dirty fingers 
 touched the candy, closed on it, and were withdrawn 
 but were withdrawn too quickly. The child, at the 
 psychological moment under stress of excitement, 
 eagerness and probably a wildly thumping heart, had 
 failed in finesse. Perhaps the paper that covered the 
 surface of the push-cart and on which the wares were 
 displayed rattled; perhaps the sudden movement in it- 
 self attracted the vendor's attention. The man whirled 
 and made a vicious dive for the child as she darted 
 out from between the wheels. And then she screamed. 
 The man had hit her a brutal clout across the head. 
 
 John Bruce straightened suddenly, a dull red creep- 
 ing from his set jaw to his cheeks. Still clutching the 
 candy in her hand the child was running blindly and 
 in terror straight toward him. The man struck again, 
 and the child staggered, and, reeling, sought sanctuary 
 between John Bruce's legs. A bearded, snarling face 
 in pursuit loomed up before him and John Brace 
 struck, struck as he had once struck before on a white 
 moon-flooded deck when a man, a brute beast, had 
 gone down before him and the vendor, screaming 
 shrilly, lay kicking in pain on the sidewalk. 
 
 It had happened quickly. Not one, probably, of 
 those on the street had caught the details of the little 
 scene. And now the tiny thief had wriggled through 
 his legs, and with the magnificent irresponsibility of 
 childhood had darted away and was lost to sight. It 
 had happened quickly but not so quickly as the gath- 
 ering together of an angry, surging crowd around 
 John Bruce.
 
 SANCTUARY 69 
 
 Some one in the crowd shrieked out above the 
 clamor of voices : 
 
 "He kill-a Pietro! Kill-a da dude!" 
 
 It was a fire-brand. 
 
 John Bruce backed away a little up against the 
 door of Signer Pascalo Ratti's wine shop. A glance 
 showed him that, with the blow he had struck, his light 
 overcoat had become loosened, and that he was flaunt- 
 ing an immaculate and gleaming shirt-front in the 
 faces of the crowd. And between their Pietro with a 
 broken jaw and an intruder far too well dressed to 
 please their fancy, the psychology of the crowd became 
 the psychology of a mob. 
 
 The fire-brand took. 
 
 "Kill-a da dude!" It was echoed in chorus and 
 then a rush. 
 
 It flung John Bruce heavily against the wine shop 
 door, and the door crashed inward and for a mo- 
 ment he was down, and the crowd, like a snarling wolf 
 pack, was upon him. And then the massive shoulders 
 heaved, and he shook them off and was on his feet; 
 and all that was primal, elemental in the man was 
 dominant, the mad glorying in strife upon him, and 
 he struck right and left with blows before which, again 
 and again, a man went down. 
 
 But the rush still bore him backward, and the door- 
 way was black and jammed with reinforcements con- 
 stantly pouring in. Tables crashed to the floor, chairs 
 were overturned. Out of the corner of his eye he saw 
 a white-mustached Italian leap upon the counter and 
 alternately wave his arms and wring his hands to- 
 gether frantically. 
 
 "For the mercy of God!" the man screamed and
 
 70 PAWNED 
 
 then his voice added to the din in a flood of impas. 
 sioned Italian. It was Signor Pascalo Ratti, probably. 
 
 John Bruce was panting now, his breath coming in 
 short, hard gasps. It was not easy to keep them in 
 front of him, to keep his back free. He caught the 
 glint of knife blades now. 
 
 He was borne back foot by foot, the space widening 
 as he retreated from the door, giving room for more 
 to come upon him at the same time. A knife blade 
 lunged at him. He evaded it but another glittering 
 in the ceiling light at the same instant, flashing a mur- 
 derous arc in its downward plunge, caught him, and, 
 before he could turn, sank home. 
 
 A yell of triumph went up. He felt no pain. Only 
 a sudden sickening of his brain, a sudden weakness that 
 robbed his limbs of strength, and he reeled and stag- 
 gered, fighting blindly now. 
 
 And then his brain cleared. He flung a quick 
 glance over his shoulder. Yes, there was one chance. 
 Only one ! And in another minute, with another knife 
 thrust, it would be too late. He whirled suddenly and 
 raced down the length of the cafe. In the moment's 
 grace earned through surprise at his sudden action, he 
 gained a door he had seen there, and threw himself 
 upon it. It was not fastened, though there was a key 
 in the lock. He whipped out the key, plunged through, 
 locked the door on the outside with the fraction of a 
 second to spare before they came battering upon it 
 and stumbled and fell headlong out into the open. 
 
 It was as though he were lashing his brain into ac- 
 tion and virility. It kept wobbling and fogging. 
 Didn't the damned thing understand that his life was 
 at stake 1 He lurched to his feet. He was in a lane.
 
 SANCTUARY 71 
 
 In front of him, like great looming shadows, shadows 
 that wobbled too, he saw the shapes of two tenements, 
 and like an inset between them, a small house with a 
 light gleaming in the lower window. 
 
 That was where the vision lived. Only there was 
 a fence between. Sanctuary! He lunged toward the 
 fence. He had not meant to to make a call to-night 
 she she might have misunderstood. But in a sec- 
 ond now they would come sweeping around into the 
 lane after him from the street. 
 
 He clawed his way to the top of the fence, and 
 because his strength was almost gone fell from the top 
 of the fence to the ground on the other side. 
 
 And now he crawled, crawled with what frantic 
 haste he could, because he heard the uproar from the 
 street. And he laughed. The kid was probably 
 munching her hunk of candy now. Queer things 
 kids! Got her candy happy 
 
 He reached up to the sill of an open window, clawed 
 his way upward, as he had clawed his way up the fence, 
 straddled the sill unsteadily, clutched at nothingness 
 to save himself, and toppled inward to the floor of the 
 room. 
 
 A yell from the head of the lane, a cry from the 
 other end of the room, spurred him into final effort. 
 He gained his feet, and swept his hand, wet with blood, 
 across his eyes. That was the vision there running 
 toward him, wasn't it? the wonderful, glorious 
 vision ! 
 
 "Pardon me!" said John Bruce in a sing-song voice, 
 and with a desperate effort reached up and pulled down 
 the window shade. He tried to smile "Queer queer
 
 72 PAWNED 
 
 things kids aren't they? She she just ducked out 
 from under." 
 
 The girl was staring at him wildly, her hands tightly 
 clasped to her bosom. 
 
 "Pardon me!" whispered John Bruce thickly. He 
 couldn't see her any more, just a multitude of objects 
 whirling like a kaleidoscope before his eyes. "She 
 she got the candy," said John Bruce, attempting to 
 smile again and pitched unconscious to the floor.
 
 IV 
 
 A DOCTOR OF MANY DEGREES 
 
 DEAD ! The girl was on her knees beside John 
 Bruce. Dead he did not move ! It was the 
 man who had pawned his watch-fob hardly 
 half an hour before ! What did it mean? What did 
 those angry shouts, that scurrying ' of many feet out 
 there in the lane mean? Hurriedly, her face as deadly 
 white as the face upturned to her from the floor, she 
 tore open the once immaculate shirt-front, that was 
 now limp and wet and ugly with a great crimson stain, 
 and laid bare the wound. 
 
 The sounds from without were receding, the scurry- 
 ing footsteps were keeping on along the lane. A quiver 
 ran through the form on the floor. Dead ! No, he was 
 not dead not not yet. 
 
 A little cry escaped from her tightly closed lips, and 
 for an instant she covered her eyes with her hands. 
 The wound was terrible it frightened her. It 
 frightened her the more because, intuitively, she knew 
 that it was beyond any inexperienced aid that she could 
 give. But she must act, and act quickly. 
 
 She turned and ran into the adjoining room to the 
 telephone, but even as she reached out to lift the 
 receiver from the hook she hesitated. Doctor Crang! 
 A little shudder of aversion swept over her and then 
 resolutely, even pleading with central to hurry, she 
 
 73
 
 74 PAWNED 
 
 asked for the connection. It was not a matter of 
 choice, or aversion, or any other consideration in the 
 world save a question of minutes. The life of that 
 man in there on the floor hung by a thread. Doctor 
 Crang was nearby enough to respond almost instantly, 
 and there was no one else she knew of who she could 
 hope would reach the man in time. And she stared 
 frantically at the instrument now was even he un- 
 available? Why didn't he answer? Why didn't 
 
 A voice reached her. She recognized it. 
 
 "Doctor Crang, this is Claire Veniza," she said, 
 and it did not seem as though she could speak fast 
 enough. "Come at once oh, at once please! 
 There's a man here frightfully wounded. There isn't 
 a second to lose, so" 
 
 "My dear Claire," interrupted the voice suavely, 
 "instead of losing one you can save several by telling 
 me what kind of a wound it is, and where the man is 
 wounded." 
 
 "It's a knife wound, a stab, I think," she answered; 
 "and it's in his side. He is unconscious, and " 
 
 The receiver at the other end had been replaced on 
 its hook. 
 
 She turned from the telephone, and swiftly, hurry- 
 ing, but in cool self-control now, she obtained some 
 cloths and a basin of warm water, and returned to John 
 Bruce's side. She could not do much, she realized that 
 only make what effort she could to staunch the 
 appalling flow of blood from the wound; that, and 
 place a cushion under the man's head, for she could not 
 lift him to the couch. 
 
 The minutes passed; and then, thinking she heard 
 a footstep at the front door, she glanced in that direc-
 
 A DOCTOR OF MANY DEGREES 75 
 
 tion, half in relief, and yet, too, in curious apprehen- 
 sion. She listened. No, there was no one there yet. 
 She had been mistaken. 
 
 Suddenly she caught her breath in a little gasp, as 
 though startled. Doctor Crang was clever; but faith 
 in Doctor Crang professionally was one thing, and 
 faith in him in other respects was quite another. Why 
 hadn't she thought of it before? It wasn't too late yet, 
 was it? 
 
 She began to search hastily through John Bruce's 
 pockets. Doctor Crang would almost certainly sug- 
 gest removing the man from the sitting room down 
 here and getting him upstairs to a bedroom, and then 
 he would undress his patient, and and it was perhaps 
 as well to anticipate Doctor Crang! This man here 
 should have quite a sum of money on his person. She 
 had given it to him herself, and yes, here it was! 
 
 The crisp new fifty-dollar bills, the stamped and 
 numbered ticket that identified the watch-fob he had 
 pawned, were in her hand. She ran across the room, 
 opened a little safe in the corner, placed the money and 
 ticket inside, locked the safe again, and returned to 
 John Bruce's side once more. 
 
 And suddenly her eyes filled. There was no tremor, 
 no movement in the man's form now; she could not 
 even feel his heartbeat. Yes, she wanted Doctor 
 Crang now, passionately, wildly. John Bruce that 
 was the man's name. She knew that much. But she 
 had left him miles away and he was here now and 
 she did not understand. How had he got here, why 
 had he come here, climbing in through that window to 
 fall at her feet like one dead? 
 
 The front door opened without premonitory ring of
 
 76 PAWNED 
 
 bell, and closed again. A footstep came quickly for- 
 ward through the outer room and paused on the 
 threshold. 
 
 Claire Veniza rose to her feet, and her eyes went 
 swiftly, sharply, to the figure standing there a man 
 of perhaps thirty years of age, of powerful build, and 
 yet whose frame seemed now woefully loose, dis- 
 jointed and without virility. Her eyes traveled to the 
 man's clothing that was dirty, spotted, and in dire need 
 of sponging, to the necktie that hung awry, to the face 
 that, but for its unhealthy, pasty-yellow complexion, 
 would have been almost strikingly handsome, to the 
 jet-black eyes that somehow at the moment seemed to 
 lack fire and life. And with a little despairing shrug 
 of her shoulders, Claire Veniza turned away her head, 
 and pointed to the form of John Bruce on the floor. 
 
 "I I am afraid it is very serious, Doctor Crang," 
 she faltered. 
 
 "That's all right, Claire," he said complacently. 
 "That's all right, my dear. You can leave it with con- 
 fidence to Sydney Angus Crang, M.D." 
 
 She drew a little away as he stepped forward, her 
 face hardening into tight little lines. Hidden, her 
 hands clasped anxiously together. It it was what she 
 had feared. Doctor Sydney Angus Crang, gold med- 
 alist from one of the greatest American universities, 
 brilliant far beyond his fellows, with additional degrees 
 from London, from Vienna, from Heaven alone knew 
 where else, was just about entering upon, or emerging 
 from, a groveling debauch with that Thing to which 
 he had pawned his manhood, his intellect and his soul, 
 that Thing of gray places, of horror, of forgetfulness, 
 of bliss, of torture cocaine.
 
 A DOCTOR OF MANY DEGREES 77 
 
 Halfway from the threshold to where John Bruce 
 lay, Doctor Crang halted abruptly. 
 
 "Hello!" he exclaimed, and glanced with suddenly 
 darkening face from Claire Veniza to the form of John 
 Bruce, and back to Claire Veniza again. 
 
 "Oh, will you hurry!" she implored. "Can't you see 
 that the wound " 
 
 "I am more interested in the man than in the 
 wound," said Doctor Crang, and there was a hint of 
 menace in his voice. "Quite a gentleman of parts! 
 I had expected let me see what I had expected well, 
 say, one of the common knife-sticking breed that 
 curses this neighborhood." 
 
 Claire Veniza stamped her foot. 
 
 "Oh, hurry!" she burst out wildly. "Don't stand 
 there talking while the man is dying! Do something!" 
 
 Doctor Crang advanced to John Bruce's side, set 
 down the little handbag he was carrying, and began to 
 examine the wound. 
 
 "Yes, quite a gentleman of parts!" he repeated. His 
 lips had thinned. "How did he get here?" 
 
 "I do not know," she answered. "He came in 
 through that window there and fell on the floor." 
 
 "How peculiar!" observed Doctor Crang. "A 
 gentleman down here in this locality, who is, yes, I will 
 state it as a professional fact, in a very critical state, 
 climbs in through Miss Claire Veniza's window, 
 and " 
 
 The telephone in the other room rang. Claire 
 Veniza ran to it. Doctor Crang's fingers nestled on 
 John Bruce's pulse ; he made no other movement save 
 to cock his head in a listening attitude in the girl's
 
 78 PAWNED 
 
 direction; he made no effort either to examine further 
 or to dress the wound. 
 
 Claire Veniza's voice came distinctly: 
 
 ". . . Yes . . . No, I do not think he will return 
 to-night" she was hesitating "he he met with an 
 an accident " 
 
 Doctor Crang had sprung from the other room and 
 had snatched the receiver from the girl's hand. A 
 wave of insensate fury swept his face now. He pushed 
 her roughly from the instrument, and clapped his hand 
 over the transmitter. 
 
 "That's one lie you've told me!" he said hoarsely. 
 "I'll attend to the rest of this now." He withdrew 
 his hand from the transmitter. "Yes, hello!" His 
 voice was cool, even suave. "What is it? . . . Mon- 
 sieur Henri de Lavergne speaking yes . . . Mister 
 who? . . . Mister John Bruce yes." He listened 
 for a moment, his lips twitching, his eyes narrowed on 
 Claire Veniza, who had retreated a few steps away. 
 "No, not to-night," he said, speaking again into the 
 transmitter. "Yes, a slight accident. . . . Yes . . . 
 Good-by." 
 
 Doctor Sydney Angus Crang hung up the receiver, 
 and with a placid smile at variance with the glitter that 
 suddenly brought life into his dulled eyes, advanced 
 toward the girl. She stepped backward quickly into 
 the other room, retreating as far as the motionless 
 form that lay upon the floor. Doctor Crang followed 
 her. 
 
 And then Claire Veniza, her face grown stony, her 
 small hands clenched, found her voice again. 
 
 "Aren't you going to help him? Aren't you going
 
 A DOCTOR OF MANY DEGREES 79 
 
 to do something? Is he to die there before your eyes?" 
 she cried. 
 
 Doctor Crang shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "What can I do?" he inquired with velvet softness. 
 "I am helpless. How can I bring the dead back to 
 life?" 
 
 "Dead!" All color had fled her face; she bent and 
 looked searchingly at John Bruce. 
 
 "Oh, no; not yet," said Doctor Crang easily. "But 
 very nearly so." 
 
 "And you will do nothing!" She was facing him 
 again. "Then then I will try and get some one else." 
 
 She stepped forward abruptly. 
 
 Doctor Crang barred her way. 
 
 "I don't think you will, Claire, my dear!" His voice 
 was monotonous; the placid smile was vanishing. 
 "You see, having spoken to that dear little doll of a 
 man, Monsieur Henri de Lavergne, I'm very much 
 interested in hearing your side of the story." 
 
 "Story!" the girl echoed wildly. "Story while that 
 man's life is lost! Are you mad or a murderer 
 or " 
 
 "Another lover," said Doctor Crang, and threw 
 back his head and laughed. 
 
 She shrank away; her hands tight against her bosom. 
 She glanced around her. If she could only reach the 
 telephone and lock the connecting door! No! She 
 did not dare leave him alone with the wounded man. 
 
 "What what are you going to do?" she whispered. 
 
 "Nothing till I hear the story," he answered. 
 
 "If if he dies" her voice rang steadily again 
 "I'll have you charged with murder." 
 
 "What nonsense!" said Doctor Crang imperturb-
 
 8o PAWNED 
 
 ably. "Did I stab the gentleman?" He took from his 
 pocket a little case, produced a hypodermic syringe, 
 and pushed back his sleeve. "A doctor is not a 
 magician. If he finds a patient beyond reach of aid 
 what can he be expected to do? My dear Claire, 
 where are your brains to-night you who are usually 
 so amazingly clever?" 
 
 "You are mad insane with drug!" she cried out 
 piteously. 
 
 He shook his head, and coolly inserted the needle of 
 the hypodermic in his arm. 
 
 "Not yet," he said. "I am only implacable. Shall 
 we get on with the story? Monsieur de Lavergne says 
 he sent a gentleman by the name of John Bruce out in 
 your father's car a little while ago for the purpose of 
 obtaining a loan in order that the said John Bruce 
 might return to the gambling joint and continue to play. 
 But Mr. Bruce did not return, and the doll, for some 
 reason being anxious, telephones here to make in- 
 quiries. Of course" there was a savage laugh in his 
 voice "it is only a suspicion, but could this gentleman 
 on the floor here by any chance be Mr. John Bruce?" 
 
 "Yes," she said faintly. "He is John Bruce." 
 
 "Thanks!" said Doctor Crang sarcastically. He 
 very carefully replaced his hypodermic in his pocket. 
 "Now another little matter. I happen to know that 
 your father is spending the evening uptown, so I won- 
 der who was in the car with Mr. John Bruce." 
 
 She stared at him with flashing eyes. 
 
 "I was!" she answered passionately. "I don't know 
 what you are driving at! I never did it before, but 
 father was away, and Monsieur de Lavergne was terri- 
 bly insistent. He said it was for a very special guest.
 
 A DOCTOR OF MANY DEGREES 81 
 
 I I didn't, of course, tell Monsieur de Lavergne that 
 father couldn't go. I only said that I was afraid it 
 would not be convenient to make any loan to-night. 
 But he wouldn't listen to a refusal, and so I went 
 but Monsieur de Lavergne had no idea that it was 
 any one but father in the car." 
 
 Doctor Crang's lips parted wickedly. 
 
 "Naturally!" he snarled. "I quite understand that 
 you took good care of that! Who drove you?" 
 
 "Hawkins." 
 
 "Drunk as usual, I suppose ! Brain too fuddled to 
 ask questions!" 
 
 "That's not true!" she criea out sharply. "Haw- 
 kins hasn't touched a drop for a year." 
 
 "All right!" snapped Doctor Crang. "Have it that 
 way, then ! Being in his dotage, he makes a good blind, 
 even sober. And so you went for a little ride with 
 Mr. John Bruce to-night?" 
 
 Claire Veniza was wringing her hands as she 
 glanced in an agony of apprehension at the wounded 
 man on the floor. 
 
 "Yes," she said; "but but won't you " 
 
 "And where did you first meet Mr. John Bruce, and 
 how long ago?" he jerked out. 
 
 Claire Veniza's great brown eyes widened. 
 
 "Why, I never saw him in my life until to-night!" 
 she exclaimed. "And he wasn't in the car ten minutes. 
 Hawkins drove back to the corner just as he always 
 does with father, and Mr. Bruce got out. Then 
 Hawkins drove me home and went uptown to get 
 father. I I wish they were here now !" 
 
 Doctor Crang was gritting his teeth together. A
 
 82 PAWNED 
 
 slight unnatural color was tinging his cheeks. He 
 moved a little closer to the girl. 
 
 "I'm glad to hear you never saw Mr. Bruce before," 
 he said cunningly. "You must have traveled fast then 
 metaphorically speaking. Love at first sight, eh? 
 A cooing exchange of confidences or was it all on one 
 side? You told him who you were, and where you 
 lived, and " 
 
 "I did nothing of the kind!" Claire Veniza inter- 
 rupted angrily. "I did not tell him anything!" 
 
 "Just strictly business then, of course!" Doctor 
 Crang moved a step still nearer to the girl. "In that 
 case he must have pawned something, and as Lavergne 
 sends nothing but high-priced articles to your father, 
 we shall probably find quite a sum of money in Mr. 
 Bruce's pockets. Eh Claire?" 
 
 She bit her lips. She still did not quite understand 
 only that she bitterly regretted now, somehow, that 
 she had removed the money from John Bruce's person; 
 only that the drug-crazed brain of the man in front of 
 her was digging, had dug, a trap into which she was 
 falling. What answer was she to make? What was 
 she to 
 
 With a sudden cry she shrank back but too late to 
 save herself. A face alight with passion was close to 
 hers now; hands that clamped like a steel vise, and that 
 hurt, were upon her shoulder and throat. 
 
 "You lie !" Doctor Crang shouted hoarsely. "You've 
 lied from the minute I came into this room. John 
 Bruce hell! I know now why you have always 
 refused to have anything to do with me. That's why!" 
 He loosened one hand and pointed to the figure on the 
 floor. "How long has this been going on? How long
 
 A DOCTOR OF MANY DEGREES 83 
 
 have you been meeting him? To-night is nothing, 
 though you worked it well. Hawkins to take you for 
 a little joy ride with your lover while father's away. 
 Damned clever! You left him on that corner and 
 he's here wounded ! How did he get wounded? You 
 never saw him before ! You never heard of him ! You 
 told him nothing about yourself! He didn't know 
 where you lived he could only find the private 
 entrance! Just knows enough about you to climb in 
 through your back window like a skewered dog! But, 
 of course, your story is true, because in his pockets will 
 be the money you gave him for what he pawned ! Shall 
 we look and see how much it was?" 
 
 She tore herself free and caught at her throat, gasp- 
 ing for breath. 
 
 "You you beast!" she choked. "No; you needn't 
 look ! I took it from him, and put it in the safe over 
 there before you came to keep it away from you." 
 
 Doctor Crang swept a hand across his eyes and 
 through his hair with a savage, jerky movement, and 
 then he laughed immoderately. 
 
 "What a little liar you are! Well, then, two can 
 play at the same game. I lied to you about your lover 
 there. I said there was nothing could save him. Yes, 
 yes, Claire, my dear, I lied." He knelt suddenly, and 
 suddenly intent and professional studied John Bruce's 
 face, and felt again for the pulse beat at John Bruce's 
 wrist. "Pretty near the limit," he stated coolly. 
 "Internal bleeding." He threw back his shoulders in 
 a strangely egotistical way. "Not many men could 
 do anything; but I, Sydney Angus Crang, could! 
 Ha, ha! In ten minutes he could be on the road to
 
 84 PAWNED 
 
 recovery but ten minutes, otherwise, is exactly the 
 length of time he has to live." 
 
 An instant Claire Veniza stared at him. Her mind 
 reeled with chaos, with terror and dismay. 
 
 "Then do something!" she implored wildly. "If 
 you can save him, do it! You must! You shall!" 
 
 "Why should I?" he demanded. His teeth were 
 clamped hard together. "Why should I save your 
 lover? No damn him!" 
 
 She drew away from him, and, suddenly, on her 
 knees, buried her face in her hands and burst into 
 sobs. 
 
 "This this is terrible terrible !" she cried out. 
 "Has that frightful stuff transformed you into an 
 absolute fiend? Are you no longer even human?" 
 
 Flushed, a curious look of hunger in his eyes, he 
 gazed at her. 
 
 "I'm devilishly human in some respects I" His voice 
 rose, out of control. "I want you! I have wanted 
 you from the day I saw you." 
 
 She shivered. Her hands felt suddenly icy as she 
 pressed them against her face. 
 
 "Thank God then," she breathed, "for this, at least 
 that you will never get me!" 
 
 "Won't I?" His voice rose higher, trembling with 
 passion. "Won't I ? By God, I will ! The one thing 
 in life I will have some way or another! You under- 
 stand? I will! And do you think I would let him 
 stand in the way? You drive me mad, Claire, with 
 those wonderful eyes of yours, with that hair, those 
 lips, that throat " 
 
 "Stop !" She was on her feet, and in an instant had 
 reached him, and with her hands upon his shoulders
 
 A DOCTOR OF MANY DEGREES 85 
 
 was shaking him fiercely with all her strength. "I hated 
 you, despised you, loathed you before, but with that 
 man dying here, you murderer, I " 
 
 Her voice trailed off, strangled, choked. He had 
 caught her in his arms, his lips were upon hers. She 
 struggled like a tigress. And as they lurched about the 
 room he laughed in mad abandon. She wrenched her- 
 self free at last, and slipped and fell upon the floor. 
 
 "Do you believe me now!" he panted. "I will have 
 you ! Neither this man nor any other will live to get 
 you. His life is a snap of my fingers so is any other 
 life. It's you I want, and you I will have. And I'll 
 tame you 1 Then I'll show you what love is." 
 
 She was moaning now a little to herself. She crept 
 to John Bruce and stared into his face. Dying! They 
 were letting this man die. She tried to readjust the 
 cloths upon the wound. She heard Doctor Crang laugh 
 at her again. It seemed as though her soul were sink- 
 ing into some great bottomless abyss that was black 
 with horror. She did not know this John Bruce. She 
 had told Doctor Crang so. It was useless to repeat it, 
 useless to argue with a drug-steeped brain. There was 
 only one thing that was absolute and final, and that was 
 that a man's life was ebbing away, and a fiend, an 
 inhuman fiend who could save him, but whom pleading 
 would not touch, stood callously by, not wholly indif- 
 ferent, rather gloating over what took the form of 
 triumph in his diseased mind. And then suddenly she 
 seemed so tired and weary. And she tried to pray to 
 God. And tears came, and on her knees she turned and 
 flung out her arms imploringly to the unkempt figure 
 that stood over her, and who smiled as no other man 
 she had ever seen had smiled before.
 
 86 PAWNED 
 
 "For the pity of God, for anything you have ever 
 known in your life that was pure and sacred," she said 
 brokenly, "save this man." 
 
 He looked at her for a moment, still with that sar- 
 donic smile upon his lips, and then, swift in its transi- 
 tion, his expression changed and cunning was in his 
 eyes. 
 
 "What would you give?" he purred. 
 
 "Give?" She did not look up. She felt a sudden 
 surge of relief. It debased the man the more, for it 
 was evidently money now; but her father would supply 
 that. She had only to ask for it. "What do you 
 want?" she asked eagerly. 
 
 "Yourself," said Doctor Crang. 
 
 She looked up now, quickly, startled ; read the lurk- 
 ing triumph in his eyes, and with a sudden cry of fear 
 turned away her head. 
 
 "My myself!" Her lips scarcely moved. 
 
 "Yes, my dear! Yourself Claire!" Doctor 
 Crang shrugged his shoulders. "Edinburgh, London, 
 Vienna, Paris, degrees from everywhere ha, ha! 
 am I a high-priced man? Well, then, why don't you 
 dismiss me? You called me in! That is my price 
 or shall we call it fee? Promise to marry me, Claire, 
 and I'll save that man." 
 
 Her face had lost all vestige of color. She stood 
 and looked at him, but it did not seem as though she 
 any longer had control over her limbs. She did not 
 seem able to move them. They were numbed; her 
 brain was mercifully numbed there was only a sense 
 of impending horror, without that horror taking con- 
 crete form. A voice came to her as though from some 
 great distance :
 
 A DOCTOR OF MANY DEGREES 87 
 
 "Don't take too long to make up your mind. There 
 isn't much time. It's about touch and go with him 
 now." 
 
 The words, the tone, the voice roused her. Real- 
 ization, understanding swept upon her. A faintness 
 came. She closed her eyes, swayed unsteadily, but 
 recovered herself. Something made her look at the 
 upturned face on the floor. She did not know this 
 man. He was nothing to her. Why was he pleading 
 with her to pawn herself for him? What right had he 
 to ask for worse than death from her that he might 
 live? Her soul turned sick within her. If she refused, 
 this man would die. Death! It was a very little 
 thing compared with days and months and years linked, 
 fettered, bound to a drug fiend, a coward, a foul thing, 
 a potential murderer, a man only in the sense of 
 physical form, who had abused every other God-given 
 attribute until it had rotted away! Her hands pressed 
 to her temples fiercely, in torment. Was this man to 
 live or die? In her hands was balanced a human life. 
 It seemed as though she must scream out in her anguish 
 of soul; and then it seemed as though she must fling 
 herself upon the drug-crazed being who had forced this 
 torture upon her, fling herself upon him to batter and 
 pommel with her fists at his face that smiled in hideous 
 contentment at her. What was she to do? The choice 
 was hers. To let this man here die, or to accept a 
 living death for herself no, worse than that some- 
 thing that was abominable, revolting, that profaned 
 .... She drew her breath in sharply. She was staring 
 at the man on the floor. His eyelids fluttered and 
 opened. Gray eyes were fixed upon her, eyes that did 
 not seem to see for there was a vacant stare in them
 
 88 PAWNED 
 
 and then suddenly recognition crept into them and they 
 lighted up, full of a strange, glad wonder. He made an 
 effort to speak, an effort, more feeble still, to reach out 
 his hand to her and then the eyes had closed and he 
 was unconscious again. 
 
 She turned slowly and faced Doctor Crang. 
 
 "You do not know what you are doing." She formed 
 the words with a great effort. 
 
 "Oh, yes, I do!" he answered with mocking delib- 
 eration. "I know that if I can't get you one way, I can 
 another and the way doesn't matter." 
 
 "God forgive you, then," she said in a dead voice, 
 "for I never can or will! I I agree." 
 
 He took a step toward her. 
 
 "You'll marry me?" His face was fired with pas- 
 sion. 
 
 She retreated a step. 
 
 "Yes," she said. 
 
 He reached out for her with savage eagerness. 
 
 "Claire!" he cried. "Claire!" 
 
 She pushed him back with both hands. 
 
 "Not yet!" she said, and tried to steady her voice. 
 "There is another side to the bargain. The price is 
 this man's life. If he lives I will marry you, and in 
 that case, as you well know, I can say nothing of what 
 you have done to-night; but if he dies, I am not only 
 free, but I will do my utmost to make you criminally 
 responsible for his death." 
 
 "Ah!" Doctor Crang stared at her. His hands, 
 still reaching out to touch her, trembled; his face was 
 hectic; his eyes were alight again with feverish hun- 
 ger and then suddenly the man seemed transformed 
 ; nto another being. He was on his knees beside John
 
 A DOCTOR OF MANY DEGREES 89 
 
 Bruce, and had opened his handbag in an instant, and 
 in another he had forced something from a vial 
 between John Bruce's lips; then an instrument was in 
 his hands. The man of a moment before was gone; 
 one Sydney Angus Crang, of many degrees, profes- 
 sional, deft, immersed in his work, had taken the 
 other's place. "More water! An extra basin!" he 
 ordered curtly. 
 
 Claire Veniza obeyed him in a mechanical way. Her 
 brain was numbed, exhausted, possessed of a great 
 weariness. She watched him for a little while. He 
 flung another order at her. 
 
 "Make that couch up into a bed," he directed. "He 
 can't be moved even upstairs to-night." 
 
 Again she obeyed him; finally she helped him to lift 
 John Bruce to the couch. 
 
 She sat down in a chair and waited she did not 
 know what for. Doctor Crang had drawn another 
 chair to the couch and sat there watching his patient. 
 John Bruce, as far as she could tell, showed no sign of 
 life. 
 
 Then Doctor Crang's voice seemed to float out of 
 nothingness : 
 
 "He will live, Claire, my dear! By God, I'd like 
 to have done that piece of work in a clinic! Some of 
 'em would sit up ! D'ye hear, Claire, he'll live 1" 
 
 She was conscious that he was studying her; she did 
 not look at him, nor did she answer. 
 
 An eternity seemed to pass. She heard a motor stop 
 outside in front of the house. That would be her 
 father and Hawkins. 
 
 The front door opened and closed, footsteps en-
 
 90 PAWNED 
 
 tered the room and suddenly seemed to quicken and 
 hurry forward. She rose from her chair. 
 
 "What's this? What's the matter? What's hap- 
 pened?" a tall, white-haired man cried out. 
 
 It was Doctor Crang who answered. 
 
 "Oh this, Mr. Veniza?" He waved his hand 
 indifferently toward the couch. "Nothing of any 
 importance." He shrugged his shoulders in cool 
 imperturbability, and smiled into the grave, serious 
 face of Paul Veniza. "The really important thing is 
 that Claire has promised to be my wife." 
 
 For an instant no one moved or spoke only Doctor 
 Crang still smiled. And then the silence was broken 
 by a curious half laugh, half curse that was full of 
 menace. 
 
 "You lie!" Hawkins, the round, red-faced chauf- 
 feur, had stepped from behind Paul Veniza, and now 
 faced Doctor Crang. "You lie I You damned coke- 
 eater! I'd kill you first!" 
 
 "Drunk again!" drawled Doctor Crang con- 
 temptuously. "And what have you to do with it?" 
 
 "Steady, Hawkins!" counselled Paul Veniza quietly. 
 He turned to Claire Veniza. "Claire," he asked, "is 
 is this true?" 
 
 She nodded and suddenly, blindly, started toward 
 the door. 
 
 "It is true," she said. 
 
 "Claire!" Paul Veniza stepped after her. "Claire, 
 you " 
 
 "Not to-night, father," she said in a low voice. 
 "Please let me go." 
 
 He stood aside, allowing her to pass, his face grave
 
 A DOCTOR OF MANY DEGREES 91 
 
 and anxious and then he turned again to Doctor 
 Crang. 
 
 "She is naturally very upset over what has hap- 
 pened here," said Doctor Crang easily and suddenly 
 reaching out grasped Hawkins' arm, and pulled the old 
 man forward to the couch. "Here, you!" he jerked 
 out. "You've got so much to say for yourself take 
 a look at this fellow!" 
 
 The old chauffeur bent over the couch. 
 
 "My God!" he cried out in a startled way. "It's the 
 man we I drove to-night!" 
 
 "Quite so !" observed Doctor Crang. He smiled at 
 Paul Veniza again. "Apart from the fact that the 
 fellow came in through that window with a knife stab 
 in his side that's pretty nearly done for him, Hawkins 
 knows as much about it as either Claire or I do. He's 
 in bad shape. Extremely serious. I will stay with 
 him to-night. He cannot be moved." He nodded sug- 
 gestively toward the door. "Hawkins can tell you as 
 much as I can. It's got to be quiet in here. As for 
 Claire" he seemed suddenly to be greatly disturbed 
 and occupied with the condition of the wounded man 
 on the couch "that will have to wait until morning. 
 This man's condition is critical. I can't put you out of 
 your own room, but " Again he nodded toward 
 the door. 
 
 For a moment Paul Veniza hesitated but Doctor 
 Crang's back was already turned, and he was bending 
 over the wounded man, apparently oblivious to every 
 other consideration. He motioned to Hawkins, and 
 the two left the room. 
 
 Doctor Crang looked around over his shoulder as 
 the door closed. A malicious grin spread over his
 
 92 PAWNED 
 
 face. He rubbed his hands together. Then he sat 
 down in his chair again, and began to prepare a solu- 
 tion for his hypodermic syringe. 
 
 "Yes, yes," said Doctor Crang softly, addressing the 
 unconscious form of John Bruce, "you'll live, all right, 
 my friend, I'll see to that, though the odds are still 
 against you. You're too ha, ha! valuable to die! 
 You played in luck when you drew Sydney Angus 
 Crang, M.D., as your attending physician!" 
 
 And then Doctor Sydney Angus Crang made a little 
 grimace as he punctured the flesh of his arm with the 
 needle of the hypodermic syringe and injected into 
 himself another dose of cocaine. 
 
 "Yes," said Doctor Sydney Angus Crang very 
 softly, his eyes lighting, "too valuable, much too valu- 
 able to diel"
 
 V 
 
 HAWKINS 
 
 IN the outer room, the door closed behind them, 
 Paul Veniza and Hawkins stared into each other's 
 eyes. Hawkins' face had lost its ruddy, weather- 
 beaten color, and there was a strained, perplexed 
 anxiety in his expression. 
 
 "D'ye hear what she said?" he mumbled. "D'ye 
 hear what he said? Going to be married! My little 
 girl, my innocent little girl, and and that dope- 
 feeding devil! I I don't understand, Paul. What's 
 it mean?" 
 
 Paul Veniza laid his hand on the other's shoulder, 
 as much to seek, it seemed, as to offer sympathy. He 
 shook his head. 
 
 "I don't know," he said blankly. 
 
 Hawkins' watery blue eyes under their shaggy 
 brows traveled miserably in the direction of the stair- 
 case. 
 
 "I I ain't got the right," he choked. "You go up 
 and talk to her, Paul." 
 
 Paul Veniza ran his fingers in a troubled way 
 through his white hair; then, nodding his head, he 
 turned abruptly and began to mount the stairs. 
 
 Hawkins watched until the other had disappeared 
 from sight, watched until he heard a door open and 
 close softly above ; then he swung sharply around, and 
 
 93
 
 94 PAWNED 
 
 with his old, drooping shoulders suddenly squared, 
 strode toward the door that shut him off from Doctor 
 Crang and the man he had recognized as his passenger 
 in the traveling pawn-shop earlier that night. But at 
 the door itself he hesitated, and after a moment drew 
 back, and the shoulders drooped again, and he fell to 
 twisting his hands together in nervous indecision as he 
 retreated to the center of the room. 
 
 And he stood there again, where Paul Veniza had 
 left him, and stared with the hurt of a dumb animal 
 in his eyes at the top of the staircase. 
 
 "It's all my fault," the old man whispered, and fell 
 to twisting his hands together once more. "But but 
 I thought she'd be safe with me." 
 
 For a long time he seemed to ponder his own words, 
 and gradually they seemed to bring an added burden 
 upon him, and heavily now he drew his hand across his 
 eyes. 
 
 "Why ain't I dead?" he whispered. "I ain't never 
 been no good to her. Twenty years, it is twenty 
 years. Just old Hawkins shabby old Hawkins that 
 she loves 'cause she's sorry for him." 
 
 Hawkins' eyes roved about the room. 
 
 "I remember the night I brought her here." He 
 was still whispering to himself. "In there, it was, I 
 took her." He jerked his hand toward the inner room. 
 "This here room was the pawn-shop then. God, all 
 those years ago and and I ain't never bought her 
 back again, and she ain't known no father but Paul, 
 and " His voice trailed off and died away. 
 
 He sank his chin in his hands. 
 
 Occasionally he heard the murmur of voices from 
 above, occasionally the sound of movement through the
 
 HAWKINS 95 
 
 closed door that separated him from Doctor Crang; 
 but he did not move or speak again until Paul Veniza 
 came down the stairs and stood before him. 
 
 Hawkins searched the other's face. 
 
 "It it ain't true, is it, what she said?" he ques- 
 tioned almost fiercely. "She didn't really mean it, did 
 she, Paul?" 
 
 Paul Veniza turned his head away. 
 
 "Yes, she meant it," he answered in a low voice. 
 "I don't understand. She wouldn't give me any expla- 
 nation." 
 
 Hawkins clenched his fists suddenly. 
 
 "But didn't you tell her what kind of a man Crang 
 is? Good God, Paul, didn't you tell her what he is?" 
 
 "She knows it without my telling her," Paul Veniza 
 said in a dull tone. "But I told her again; I told her 
 it was impossible, incredible. Her only answer was 
 that it was inevitable." 
 
 "But she doesn't love him! She can't love him!" 
 Hawkins burst out. "There's never been anything 
 between them before." 
 
 "No, she doesn't love him. Of course, she doesn't I" 
 Paul Veniza said, as though speaking to himself. He 
 looked at Hawkins suddenly under knitted brows. 
 "And she says she never saw that other man in her life 
 before until he stepped into the car. She says she only 
 went out to-night because they were so urgent about 
 it up at the house, and that she felt everything would 
 be perfectly safe with you driving the car. I can't 
 make anything out of itl" 
 
 Hawkins drew the sleeve of his coat across his brow. 
 It was cool in the room, but little beads of moisture 
 were standing out on his forehead.
 
 96 PAWNED 
 
 "I ain't brought her nothing but harm all my life," 
 he said brokenly. "I " 
 
 "Don't take it that way, old friend!" Paul 
 Veniza's hands sought the other's shoulders. "I don't 
 see how you are to blame for this. Claire said that 
 other man treated her with all courtesy, and left the 
 car after you had gone around the block; and she 
 doesn't know how he afterwards came here wounded 
 any more than we do and anyway, it can't have any- 
 thing to do with her marrying Doctor Crang." 
 
 "What's she doing now?" demanded Hawkins 
 abruptly. "She's up there crying her heart out, ain't 
 she?" 
 
 Paul Veniza did not answer. 
 
 Hawkins straightened up. A sudden dignity came 
 to the shabby old figure. 
 
 "What hold has that devil got on my little girl?" 
 he cried out sharply. "I'll make him pay for it, so 
 help me God! My little girl, my little " 
 
 "S-sh!" Paul Veniza caught hurriedly at Hawkins' 
 arm. "Be careful, old friend!" he warned. "Not so 
 loud! She might hear you." 
 
 Hawkins cast a timorous, startled glance in the 
 direction of the stairs. He seemed to shrink again 
 into a stature as shabby as his clothing. His lips 
 twitched ; he twisted his hands together. 
 
 "Yes," he mumbled; "yes, she she might hear me." 
 He stared around the room; and then, as though 
 blindly, his hands groping out in front of him, he 
 started for the street door. "I'm going home," said 
 Hawkins. "I'm going home to think this out." 
 
 Paul Veniza's voice choked a little. 
 
 "Your hat, old friend," he said, picking up the old
 
 HAWKINS 97 
 
 man's hat from the table and following the other to 
 the door* 
 
 "Yes, my hat," said Hawkins and pulling it far 
 down over his eyes, crossed the sidewalk, and climbed 
 into the driver's seat of the old, closed car that stood 
 at the curb. 
 
 He started the car mechanically. He did not look 
 back. He stared straight ahead of him except when, 
 at the corner, his eyes lifted and held for a moment on 
 the lighted windows and the swinging doors of a 
 saloon and the car went perceptibly slower. Then 
 his hands tightened fiercely in their hold upon the wheel 
 until the white of the knuckles showed, and the car 
 passed the saloon and turned the next corner and 
 went on. 
 
 Halfway down the next block it almost came to a 
 halt again when opposite a dark and dingy driveway 
 that led in between, and to the rear of, two poverty- 
 stricken frame houses. Hawkins stared at this unin- 
 viting prospect, and made as though to turn the car 
 into the driveway; then, shaking his head heavily, he 
 continued on along the street. 
 
 "I can't go in there and sit by myself all alone," 
 said Hawkins hoarsely. "I I'd go mad. It's it's 
 like as though they'd told me to-night that she'd died 
 same as they told me about her mother the night I 
 went to Paul's." 
 
 The car moved slowly onward. It turned the next 
 corner and the next. It almost completed the cir- 
 cuit of the block. Hawkins now was wetting his lips 
 with the tip of his tongue. His hands on the wheel 
 were trembling. The car had stopped. Hawkins was
 
 98 PAWNED 
 
 staring again at the lighted windows and the swinging 
 doors of the saloon. 
 
 He sat for a long time motionless; then he climbed 
 down from his seat. 
 
 "Just one," Hawkins whispered to himself. "Just 
 one. I I'd go mad if I didn't." 
 
 Hawkins pushed the swinging doors open, and sidled 
 up to the bar. 
 
 "Hello, Hawkins!" grinned the barkeeper. "Been 
 out of town? I ain't seen you the whole afternoon!" 
 
 "You mind your own business!" said Hawkins sur- 
 lily. 
 
 "Sure!" nodded the barkeeper cheerily. "Same as 
 usual?" He slid a square-faced bottle and a glass 
 toward the old man. 
 
 Hawkins helped himself and drank moodily. He 
 set his empty glass back on the bar, jerked down his 
 shabby vest and straightened up, his eyes resolutely 
 fixed on the door. Then he felt in his pocket for his 
 pipe and tobacco. His eyes shifted from the door to 
 his pipe. He filled it slowly. 
 
 "Give me another," said Hawkins presently with- 
 out looking at the barkeeper. 
 
 Again the old man drank, and jerked down his vest, 
 and squared his thin shoulders. He lighted his pipe, 
 tamping the bowl carefully with his forefinger. His 
 eyes sought the swinging doors once more. 
 
 "I'm going home," said Hawkins defiantly to him- 
 self. "I've got to think this out." He dug into his 
 vest pocket for money, and produced a few small bills. 
 He stared at these for a moment, hesitated, started to 
 replace them in his pocket, hesitated again, and the tip 
 of his tongue circled his lips; then he pushed the money
 
 HAWKINS 99 
 
 across the bar. "Take the drinks out of that, and 
 and give me a bottle," he said. "I I don't like to be 
 without anything in the house, and I got to go home." 
 
 "You said something J" said the barkeeper. "Have 
 one on the house before you go ?" 
 "No; I won't." 
 
 "No," said Hawkins with stern determination. 
 
 Hawkins crowded the bottle into the side pocket 
 of his coat, passed out through the swinging doors, 
 and resumed his seat on the car. And again the car 
 started forward. But it went faster now. Hawkins' 
 face was flushed; he seemed nervously and excitedly in 
 haste. At the driveway he turned in, garaged his car 
 in an old shed at the rear of one of the houses, locked 
 the shed with a padlock, and, by way of the back door, 
 entered the house that was in front of the shed. 
 
 It was quite dark insjde, but Hawkins had been an 
 inmate of the somewhat seedy rooming-house too many 
 years either to expect that a light should be burning 
 at that hour, or, for that matter, to require any light. 
 He groped his way up a flight of creaking stairs, 
 opened the door of a room, and stepped inside. He 
 shut the door behind him, locked it, and struck a match. 
 A gas-jet wheezed asthmatically, and finally flung a 
 thin and sullen yellow glow about the place. It dis- 
 closed a cot bed, a small strip of carpet long since worn 
 bare of nap, a washstand, an old trunk, a battered 
 table, and two chairs. 
 
 Hawkins, with some difficulty, extricated the bottle 
 from his pocket, and lifted the lid of his trunk. He 
 thrust the bottle inside, and in the act of closing the 
 lid upon it hesitated. 
 
 "I I ain't myself to-night, I ain't," said Hawkins
 
 ioo PAWNED 
 
 tremulously. "It's shook me, it has bad. Just one 
 so help me God I just one." 
 
 Hawkins sat down at the table with the bottle in 
 front of him. 
 
 And while Hawkins sat there it grew very late. 
 
 At intervals Hawkins talked to himself. At times 
 he stared owlishly from a half-emptied bottle to the 
 black square of window pane above the trunk and 
 once he shook his fist in that direction. 
 
 "Crang eh damn you!" he gritted out. "You 
 think you got her, do you ? Some dirty, cunning trick 
 you've played her! But you don't know old Hawkins. 
 Ha, ha ! You think he's only a drunken bum !" 
 
 Hawkins, as it grew later still, became unsteady in 
 his seat. Gradually his head sank down upon the 
 table. 
 
 "I hie! gotta think this out," said Hawkins 
 earnestly and fell asleep.
 
 VI -^ 
 
 THE ALIBI 
 
 JOHN BRUCE opened his eyes dreamily, unsee- 
 ingly; and then his eyelids fluttered and closed 
 again. There was an exquisite sense of languor 
 upon him, of cool, comfortable repose; a curious 
 absence of all material things. It seemed as though 
 he were in some suspended state of animation. 
 
 It was very strange. It wasn't life not life as he 
 had ever known it. Perhaps it was death. He did 
 not understand. 
 
 He tried to think. He was conscious that his mind 
 for some long indeterminate period had been occupied 
 with the repetition of queer, vague, broken snatches 
 of things, fantastic things born of illusions, brain fan- 
 cies, cobwebby, intangible, which had no meaning, and 
 were without beginning or end. There was a white 
 beach, very white, and a full round moon, and the 
 moon winked knowingly while he whittled with a huge 
 jack-knife at a quill toothpick. And then there was a 
 great chasm of blackness which separated the beach 
 from some other place that seemed to have nothing to 
 identify it except this black chasm which was the 
 passageway to it; and here a man's face, a face that 
 was sinister in its expression, and both repulsive and 
 unhealthy in its color, was constantly bending over 
 him, and the man's head was always in the same 
 
 1 01
 
 102 PAWNED 
 
 posture cocked a little to one side, as though listening 
 intently and straining to hear something. And then, 
 in the same place, but less frequently, there was 
 another face and this seemed to bring with it always 
 a shaft of warm, bright sunlight that dispelled the 
 abominable gloom, and before which the first face 
 vanished a beautiful, the wondrously beautiful, face 
 of a girl, one that he had seen somewhere before, that 
 was haunting in its familiarity and for which it seemed 
 he had always known a great yearning, but which 
 plagued him miserably because there seemed to be 
 some unseen barrier between them, and because he 
 could not recognize her, and she could not speak and 
 tell him who she was. 
 
 John Bruce opened his eyes again. Dimly, faintly, 
 his mind seemed to be grasping coherent realities. He 
 began to remember fragments of the past, but it was 
 very hard to piece those fragments together into a 
 concrete whole. That white beach yes, he remem- 
 bered that. And the quill toothpick. Only the huge 
 jack-knife was absurd! It was at Apia with Larmon. 
 But he was in a room somewhere now, and lying on a 
 cot of some sort. And it was night. How had he 
 come here? 
 
 He moved a little, and suddenly felt a twinge of 
 pain in his side. His hand groped under the covering, 
 and his fingers came into contact with bandages that 
 were wrapped tightly around his body. 
 
 And then in a flash memory returned. He remem- 
 bered the fight in Ratti's wine shop, the knife stab, and 
 how he had dragged himself along the lane and 
 climbed in through her window. His eyes now in a 
 startled way were searching his surroundings. Per-
 
 THE ALIBI 103 
 
 haps this was the room 1 He could not be quite sure, 
 but there seemed to be something familiar about it. 
 The light was very low, like a gas-jet turned down, and 
 he could not make out where it came from, nor could 
 he see any window through which he might have 
 climbed in. 
 
 He frowned in a troubled way. It was true that, 
 as he had climbed in that night, he had not been in a 
 condition to take much note of the room, but yet it did 
 seem to be the same place. The frown vanished. 
 What did it matter ? He knew now beyond any ques- 
 tion whose face it was that had come to him so often 
 in that shaft of sunlight. Yes, it did matter! He 
 must have been unconscious, perhaps for only a few 
 hours, perhaps for days, but if this was the same place, 
 then she was here, not as a figment of the brain, not 
 as one created out of his own longing, but here in her 
 actual person, a living, breathing reality. It was the 
 girl of the traveling pawn-shop, and 
 
 John Bruce found himself listening with sudden 
 intentness. Was he drifting back into unconsciousness 
 again, into that realm of unreal things, where the mind, 
 fevered and broken, wove out of its sick imagination 
 queer, meaningless fancies? It was strange that unreal 
 things should seem so real ! Wasn't that an animal of 
 some sort scratching at the wall of the house outside? 
 
 He lifted his head slightly from the pillow and 
 held it there. A voice from within the room reached 
 him in an angry, rasping whisper: 
 
 "Damn you, Birdie, why don't you pull the house 
 down and have done with it? You clumsy hog! Do 
 you want the police on us? Can't you climb three feet 
 without waking up the whole of New York?"
 
 104 PAWNED 
 
 John Bruce's lips drew together until they formed a 
 tight, straight line. This was strange ! Very strange ! 
 It wasn't a vagary of his brain this time. His brain 
 was as clear now as it had ever been in his life. The 
 voice came from beyond the head of his cot. He had 
 seen no one in the room, but that was natural enough 
 since from the position in which he was lying his line 
 of vision was decidedly restricted; what seemed incom- 
 prehensible though, taken in conjunction with the 
 words he had just heard, was that his own presence 
 there appeared to be completely ignored. 
 
 He twisted his head around cautiously, and found 
 that the head of the cot was surrounded by a screen. 
 He nodded to himself a little grimly. That accounted 
 for it! There was a scraping sound now, and heavy, 
 labored breathing. 
 
 John Bruce silently and stealthily stretched out his 
 arm. He could just reach the screen. It was made of 
 some soft, silken material, and his fingers found no 
 difficulty in drawing this back a little from the edge of 
 that portion of the upright framework which was 
 directly in front of him. 
 
 He scarcely breathed now. Perhaps he was in so 
 weak a state that his mind faltered if crowded, for 
 there was so much to see that he could not seem to 
 grasp it all as a single picture. He gazed fascinated. 
 The details came slowly one by one. It was the 
 room where he had crawled in through the window and 
 had fallen senseless to the floor whenever that had 
 been! That was the window there. And, curiously 
 enough, another man was crawling in through it now I 
 And there was whispering. And two other men were 
 already standing in the room, but he could not see their
 
 THE ALIBI 105 
 
 faces because their backs were turned to him. Then 
 one of the two swung around in the direction of the 
 window, bringing his face into view. John Bruce 
 closed his eyes for a moment. Yes, it must be that! 
 His mind was off wandering once more, painting and 
 picturing for itself its fanciful unrealities, bringing 
 back again the character it had created, the man with 
 the sinister face whose pallor was unhealthy and 
 repulsive. 
 
 And then he opened his eyes and looked again, and 
 the face was still there and it was real. And now 
 the man spoke : 
 
 "Come on, get busy, Birdie ! If you take as long to 
 crack the box as you have taken to climb in through 
 a low window, maybe we'll be invited to breakfast with 
 the family ! You act just like a swell cracksman not ! 
 But here's the combination so try and play up to the 
 part!" 
 
 The man addressed was heavy of build, with a pock- 
 marked and forbidding countenance. He was panting 
 from his exertions, as, inside the room now, he leaned 
 against the sill. 
 
 "That's all right, Doc!" he grunted. "That's all 
 right ! But how about his nibs over there behind the 
 screen? Ain't he ever comin' out of his nap?" 
 
 The man addressed as "Doc" rolled up the sleeve 
 of his left arm, and produced a hypodermic syringe 
 from his pocket. 
 
 "There's the safe over there, Birdie," he drawled, 
 as he pricked his arm with the needle and pushed home 
 the plunger. "Get busy I" 
 
 The big man shuffled his feet. 
 
 "I know you know your business, Doc," he said
 
 io6 PAWNED 
 
 uneasily; "but I guess me an' Pete here'd feel more 
 comfortable if you'd have put that shot of coke into 
 the guy I'm speakin' about instead of into yourself. 
 Ain't I right, Pete?" 
 
 The third man was lounging against the wall, his 
 back still turned to John Bruce. 
 
 "Sure," he said; "but I guess you can leave it to 
 Doc. A guy that's been pawin' the air for two days 
 ain't likely to butt in much all of a sudden." 
 
 The man with the hypodermic, in the act of 
 replacing the syringe in his pocket, drew it out again. 
 
 "Coming from you, Birdie," he murmured causti- 
 cally, "that's a surprisingly bright idea. I've been 
 here for the last three hours listening to his interest- 
 ing addresses from the rostrum of delirium, and I 
 should say he was quite safe. Still, to oblige you, 
 Birdie, and make you feel more comfortable, we'll act 
 on your suggestion." 
 
 John Bruce's teeth gritted together. How weak he 
 was! His arm ached from even the slight strain of 
 extending it beyond his head to the screen. 
 
 And then he smiled grimly. But it wasn't a case 
 of strength now, was it? He was obviously quite help- 
 less in that respect. This man they called Doc believed 
 him to be still unconscious, and he drew his arm 
 silently back, tucked it again under the sheet and 
 blanket that covered him, and closed his eyes and 
 even if he could resist, which he couldn't, a hypodermic 
 injection of morphine, or cocaine, or whatever it was 
 that the supreme crook of the trio indulged in, could 
 not instantly take effect. There ought to be time 
 enough to watch at least 
 
 John Bruce lay perfectly still. He heard a footstep
 
 THE ALIBI 107 
 
 come quickly around the screen; he sensed the presence 
 of some one bending over him ; then the coverings were 
 pulled down and his arm was bared. He steeled him- 
 self against the instinctive impulse to wince at the 
 sharp prick of the needle which he knew was coming 
 and felt instead a cold and curiously merciless rage 
 sweep over him as the act was performed. Then the 
 footstep retreated and John Bruce quietly twisted 
 his head around on the pillow, reached out his arm, 
 and his fingers drew the silk panel of the screen slightly 
 away from the edge of the framework again. 
 
 He could see the safe they had referred to now. 
 It was over at the far side of the room against the 
 wall, and the three men were standing in front of it. 
 Presently it was opened. The man called Doc knelt 
 down in front of it and began to examine its contents. 
 He swung around to his companions after a moment 
 with a large pile of banknotes in his hands. From this 
 pile he counted out and handed a small portion to each 
 of the other two men and coolly stuffed the bulk of 
 the money into his own pockets. 
 
 The scene went blurry then for a moment before 
 John Bruce's eyes, and he lifted his free hand and 
 brushed it across his forehead. He was so beastly 
 weak, anyhow, and the infernal dope was getting in 
 its work too fast! He fought with all his mental 
 strength against the impulse to relax and close his 
 eyes. What was it they were doing now? It looked 
 like some foolish masquerade. The two companions 
 of the man with the sinister, pasty face were tying 
 handkerchiefs over their faces and drawing revolvers 
 from their pockets; and then the big man began to close 
 the door of the safe.
 
 io8 PAWNED 
 
 The Doc's voice came sharply: 
 
 "Look out you don't lock it, you fool !" 
 
 Once more John Bruce brushed his hand across his 
 eyes. His brain must be playing him tricks again. A 
 din infernal rose suddenly in the room. While the big 
 man lounged nonchalantly against the safe, the other 
 two were scuffling all over the floor and throwing chairs 
 about. And then from somewhere upstairs, on the 
 floor there too, John Bruce thought he caught the 
 sound of hurried movements. 
 
 Then for an instant the scuffling in the room ceased, 
 and the pasty-faced man's voice came in a peremptory 
 whisper: 
 
 "The minute any one shows at the door you swing 
 that safe open as though you'd been working at it all 
 the time, Birdie, and pretend to shove everything in 
 sight into your pockets. And you, Joe, you've got me 
 cornered and covered here see? And you hold the 
 doorway with your gun too ; and then both of you back 
 away and make your getaway through the window." 
 
 The scuffling began again. John Bruce watched the 
 scene, a sense of drowsiness and apathy creeping upom 
 him. He tried to rouse himself. He ought to do 
 something. That vicious-faced little crook who had 
 haunted him with unwelcome visitations, and who at 
 this precise moment had the bulk of the money from 
 the safe in his own pockets, was in the act of planting a 
 somewhat crude, but probably none the less effective, 
 alibi, and 
 
 John Bruce heard a door flung open, and then a 
 sudden, startled cry, first in a woman's and then in a 
 man's voice. But he could not see any door from the 
 position in which he lay. He turned over with a great
 
 THE ALIBI 109 
 
 effort, facing the other way, and reached out with his 
 fingers for the panel of the screen that overlapped the 
 head of the cot. And then John Bruce lay motionless, 
 the blood pounding fiercely at his temples. 
 
 He was conscious that a tall, white-haired man in 
 scanty attire was there, because the doorway framed 
 two figures; but he saw only a beautiful face, pitifully 
 white, only the slim form of a girl whose great brown 
 eyes were very wide with fear, and who held her dress- 
 ing gown tightly clutched around her throat. It was 
 the girl of the traveling pawn-shop, it was the girl of 
 his dreams in the shaft of sunlight, it was the girl he 
 had followed here only only the picture seemed to 
 be fading away. It was very strange! It was most 
 curious ! She always seemed to leave that way. This 
 was Larmon now instead, wasn't it? Larmon . . . 
 and a jack-knife . . . and a quill toothpick . . . 
 and .
 
 VII 
 
 THE GIRL OF THE TRAVELING PAWN-SHOP 
 
 JOHN BRUCE abstractedly twirled the tassel of 
 the old and faded dressing gown which he wore, 
 the temporary possession of which he owed to 
 Paul Veniza, his host. From the chair in which he sat 
 his eyes ventured stolen glances at the nape of a dainty 
 neck, and at a great coiled mass of silken brown hair 
 that shone like burnished copper in the afternoon sun- 
 light, as Claire Veniza, her back turned toward him, 
 busied herself about the room. He could walk now 
 across the floor and a great deal further, he was sure, 
 if they would only let him. He had not pressed that 
 point; it might be taking an unfair advantage of an 
 already over-generous hospitality, but he was not at 
 all anxious to speed his departure from well, from 
 where he was at that precise moment. 
 
 And now as he looked at Claire Veniza, his thoughts 
 went back to the night he had stepped, at old Hawkins' 
 invitation, into the traveling pawn-shop. That was 
 not so very long ago two weeks of grave illness, and 
 then the past week of convalescence but it seemed to 
 span a great and almost limitless stretch of time, and to 
 mark a new and entirely different era in his life; an 
 era that perplexed and troubled and intrigued him 
 with conditions and surroundings and disturbing ele- 
 ments that he did not comprehend but at the same 
 
 no
 
 
 THE TRAVELING PAWN-SHOP in 
 
 time made the blood in his veins to course with wild 
 abandon, and the future to hold out glad and beckon- 
 ing hands. 
 
 He loved, with a great, overwhelming, masterful 
 love, the girl who stood there just across the room all 
 unconscious of the worship that he knew was in his 
 eyes, and which he neither tried nor wished to curb. 
 Of his own love he was sure. He had loved her from 
 the moment he had first seen her, and in his heart he 
 knew he held fate kind to have given him the wound 
 that in its turn had brought the week of convalescence 
 
 just past. And yet and yet Here dismay came, 
 
 and his brain seemed to stumble. Sometimes he dared 
 to hope; sometimes he was plunged into the depths of 
 misery and despair. Little things, a touch of the hand 
 as she had nursed him that had seemed like some God- 
 given tender caress, a glance when she had thought he 
 had not seen and which he had allowed his heart to 
 interpret to its advantage with perhaps no other justi- 
 fication than its own yearning and desire, had buoyed 
 him up; and then, at times, a strange, almost bitter 
 aloofness, it seemed, in her attitude toward him and 
 this had checked, had always checked, the words that 
 were ever on his lips. 
 
 A faint flush dyed his cheeks. But even so, and for 
 all his boasted love, did he not in his own soul wrong 
 her sometimes? The questions would come. What 
 was the meaning of the strange environment in which 
 she lived? Why should she have driven to a gambling 
 hell late at night, and quite as though it were the usual 
 
 thing, to transact business alone in that car with 
 
 God! His hands clenched fiercely. He remembered 
 that night, and how the same thought had come then,
 
 ii2 PAWNED 
 
 mocking him, jeering him, making sport of him. He 
 was a cad, a pitiful, vile-minded cad 1 Thank God that 
 he was at least still man enough to be ashamed of his 
 own thoughts, even if they came in spite of him ! 
 
 Perhaps it was the strange, unusual characters that 
 surrounded her, that came and went in this curious 
 place here, that fostered such thoughts; perhaps he was 
 not strong enough yet to grapple with all these con- 
 fusing things. He smiled a little grimly. The robbery 
 of the safe, for instance and that reptile whom he 
 now knew to be his own attending physician, Doctor 
 Crang! He had said nothing about his knowledge of 
 the robbery yet. As nearly as he could judge it had 
 occurred two or three days prior to the time when his 
 actual convalescence had set in, and as a material wit- 
 ness to the crime he was not at all sure that in law 
 his testimony would be of much value. They must 
 certainly have found him in an unconscious state imme- 
 diately afterward and Doctor Crang would as indu- 
 bitably attack his testimony as being nothing more than 
 the hallucination of a sick brain. 
 
 The luck of the devil had been with Crang! Why 
 had he, John Bruce, gone drifting off into unconscious- 
 ness just at the psychological moment when, if the plan 
 had been carried out as arranged and the other two had 
 made their fake escape, Crang would have been left 
 in the room with Claire and Paul Veniza with the 
 money in his pockets! He would have had Doctor 
 Crang cold then I It was quite different now. He was 
 not quite sure what he meant to do, except that he fully 
 proposed to have a reckoning with Doctor Crang. But 
 that reckoning, something, he could not quite define
 
 THE TRAVELING PAWN-SHOP 113 
 
 what, had prompted him to postpone until he had 
 become physically a little stronger ! 
 
 And then there was another curious thing about it 
 all, which too had influenced him in keeping silent. 
 Hawkins, Paul Veniza, Claire and Doctor Crang had 
 each, severally and collectively, been here in this room 
 many times since the robbery, and not once in his pres- 
 ence had the affair ever been mentioned! And oh, 
 what did it matter! He shrugged his shoulders as 
 though to rid himself of some depressing physical 
 weight. What did anything matter on this wonderful 
 sunlit afternoon save Claire there in her white, cool 
 dress, that seemed somehow to typify her own glorious 
 youth and freshness. 
 
 How dainty and sweet and alluring she looked! His 
 eyes were no longer contented with stolen glances ; they 
 held now masterfully, defiant of any self-restraint, 
 upon the slim figure that was all grace from the trim 
 little ankles to the poise of the shapely head. He felt 
 the blood quicken his pulse. Stronger than he had 
 ever known it before, straining to burst all barriers, 
 demanding expression as a right that would not be 
 denied, his love rose dominant within him, and 
 
 The tassel he had been twirling dropped from his 
 hand. She had turned suddenly; and across the room 
 her eyes met his, calm, deep and unperturbed at first, 
 but wide the next instant with a startled shyness, and 
 the color sweeping upward from her throat crimsoned 
 her face, and in confusion she turned away her head. 
 
 John Bruce was on his feet. He stumbled a little as 
 he took a step forward. His heart was pounding, 
 flinging a red tide into the pallor of his cheeks that 
 illness had claimed as one of its tolls.
 
 ii 4 PAWNED 
 
 "I I did not mean to tell you like that," he said 
 huskily. "But I have wanted to tell you for so long. 
 It seems as though I have always wanted to tell you. 
 Claire I love you." 
 
 She did not answer. 
 
 He was beside her now only her head was lowered 
 and averted and he could not look into her face. Her 
 fingers were plucking tremulously at a fold of her 
 dress. He caught her hand between both his own. 
 
 "Claire Claire, I love you!" he whispered. 
 
 She disengaged her hand gently; and, still refusing 
 to let him see her face, shook her head slowly. 
 
 "I I " Her voice was very low. "Oh, don't 
 
 you know?" 
 
 "I know I love you," he answered passionately. "I 
 know that nothing else but that matters." 
 
 Again she shook her head. 
 
 "I thought perhaps he would have told you. I I 
 am going to marry Doctor Crang." 
 
 John Bruce stepped back involuntarily; and for a 
 moment incredulity and helpless amazement held sway 
 in his expression then his lips tightened in a hurt, half 
 angry way. 
 
 "Is that fair to me, Claire to give me an answer 
 like that?" he said in a low tone. "I know it isn't true, 
 of course; it couldn't be but but it isn't much of a 
 joke either, is it?" 
 
 "It is true," she said monotonously. 
 
 He leaned suddenly forward, and taking her face 
 between his hands, made her lift her head and look at 
 him. The brown eyes were swimming with tears. The 
 red swept her face in a great wave, and, receding, left 
 it deathly pale and in a frenzy of confusion she
 
 THE TRAVELING PAWN-SHOP 115 
 
 wrenched herself free from him and retreated a step. 
 
 "My God!" said John Bruce hoarsely. "You and 
 Doctor Crang! I don't understand! It is monstrous! 
 
 You can't love that " He checked himself, biting 
 
 at his lips. "You can't love Doctor Crang. It is 
 impossible ! You dare not stand there and tell me that 
 you do. Answer me, Claire answer me !" 
 
 She seemed to have regained her self-control or 
 perhaps it was the one defense she knew. The little 
 figure was drawn up, her head held back. 
 
 "You have no right to ask me that," she said 
 steadily. 
 
 "Right!" John Bruce echoed almost fiercely. His 
 soul itself seemed suddenly to be in passionate turmoil; 
 it seemed to juggle two figures before his consciousness, 
 contrasting one with the other in most hideous fashion 
 this woman here whom he loved, who struggled to 
 hold herself bravely, who stood for all that was pure, 
 for all that he reverenced in a woman; and that sallow, 
 evil-faced degenerate, a drug fiend so lost to the shame 
 of his vice that he pricked himself with his miserable 
 needle quite as unconcernedly in public as one would 
 smoke a cigarette and worse a crook a thief! 
 Was it a coward's act to tell this girl what the man 
 was whom she proposed to marry? Was it contempt- 
 ible to pull a rival such as that down from the pedestal 
 which in some fiendish way he must have erected for 
 himself? Surely she did not know the man for what 
 he actually was! She could not know! "Right!" he 
 cried out. "Yes, I have the right both for your sake 
 and for my own. I have the right my love gives me. 
 Do you know how I came here that first night?"
 
 n6 PAWNED 
 
 "Yes," she said with an effort. "You told me. You 
 were in a fight in Ratti's place, and were wounded." 
 
 He laughed out harshly. 
 
 "And I told you the truth as far as it went," he 
 said. "But do you know how I came to be in this 
 locality after leaving you in that motor car? I fol- 
 lowed you. I loved you from the moment I saw you 
 that night. It seems as though I have always loved you 
 as I always shall love you. That is what gives me 
 the right to speak. And I mean to speak. If it were 
 an honorable man to whom you were to be married it 
 would be quite another matter; but you cannot know 
 what you are doing, you do not know this man as he 
 really is, or what he " 
 
 "Please! Please stop!" she cried out brokenly. 
 "Nothing you could say would tell me anything I do 
 not already know." 
 
 "I am not so sure !" said John Bruce grimly. "Sup- 
 pose I told you he was a criminal?" 
 
 "He is a criminal." Her voice was without inflec- 
 tion. 
 
 "Suppose then he were sent to jail to serve a sen- 
 tence?" 
 
 "I would marry him when he came out," she said. 
 "Oh, please do not say any more! I know far more 
 about him than you do; but but that has nothing to 
 do with it." 
 
 For an instant, motionless, John Bruce stared at 
 Claire; then his hands swept out and caught her wrists 
 in a tight grip and held her prisoner. 
 
 "Claire!" His voice choked. "What does this 
 mean? You do not love him; you say you know he is 
 even a criminal and yet you are going to marry him !
 
 THE TRAVELING PAWN-SHOP 117 
 
 What hold has he got on you? What is it? What 
 damnable trap has he got you in? I am going to know, 
 Claire! I will know! And whatever it is, whatever 
 the cause of it, I'll crush it, strangle it, sweep it out 
 of your dear life at any cost ! Tell me, Claire !" 
 
 Her face had gone white; she struggled a little to 
 release herself. 
 
 "You you do not know what you are saying. 
 You " Her voice broke in a half sob. 
 
 "Claire, look at me!" He was pleading now with 
 his soul in his eyes and voice. "Claire, I " 
 
 "Oh, please let me go!" she cried out frantically. 
 "You cannot say anything that will make any differ- 
 ence, I it only makes it harder." The tears were 
 brimming in her eyes again. "Oh, please let me go 
 there's there's some one coming." 
 
 John Bruce's hands dropped to his sides. The door, 
 already half open, was pushed wide, and Hawkins, the 
 old chauffeur, stood on the threshold. And as John 
 Bruce looked in that direction, he was suddenly and 
 strangely conscious that somehow for the moment the 
 old man dominated his attention even to the exclusion 
 of Claire. There was something of curious self- 
 effacement, of humbleness in the bent, stoop-shouldered 
 figure there, who twisted a shapeless hat awkwardly in 
 his hands; but also something of trouble and deep 
 anxiety in the faded blue eyes as they fixed on the girl, 
 and yet without meeting her eyes in return, held upon 
 her as she walked slowly now toward the door. 
 
 "Dear old Hawkins," she said softly, and laid her 
 hand for an instant on the other's arm as she passed 
 by him, "you and Mr. Bruce will be able to entertain
 
 n8 PAWNED 
 
 each other, won't you? I I'm going upstairs for a 
 little while." 
 
 And the old man made no answer; but, turning on 
 the threshold, he watched her, his attitude, it seemed 
 to John Bruce, one of almost pathetic wistfulness, as 
 Claire disappeared from view.
 
 VIII - 
 
 ALLIES 
 
 CLAIRE'S footsteps, ascending the stairs, died 
 away. 
 John Bruce returned to his chair. His eyes 
 were still on the old chauffeur. 
 
 Hawkins was no longer twisting his shapeless hat 
 nervously in his fingers ; instead, he held it now in one 
 clenched hand, while with the other he closed the door 
 behind him as he stepped forward across the threshold, 
 and with squared shoulders advanced toward John 
 Bruce. And then, quite as suddenly again, as though 
 alarmed at his own temerity, the old man paused, and 
 the question on his lips, aggressively enough framed, 
 became irresolute in tone. 
 
 "What what's the matter with Claire?" he stam- 
 mered. "What's this mean?" 
 
 It was a moment before John Bruce answered, while 
 he eyed the other from head to foot. Hawkins was 
 not the least interesting by any means of the queer 
 characters that came and went and centered around 
 this one-time pawn-shop of Paul Veniza; but Haw- 
 kins, of them all, was the one he was least able, from 
 what he had seen of the man, to fathom. And yet, 
 somehow, he liked Hawkins. 
 
 "That's exactly what I want to know," he said a 
 little brusquely. "And" he eyed Hawkins once more 
 
 119
 
 120 PAWNED 
 
 with cool appraisal "I think you are the man best 
 able to supply the information." 
 
 Hawkins began to fumble with his hat again. 
 
 "I I why do you say that?" he faltered, a sud- 
 den note of what seemed almost trepidation in his 
 voice. 
 
 John Bruce shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "Possibly it is just a hunch," he said calmly. "But 
 you were the one who was driving that old bus on a 
 certain night you remember? And you seem to hang 
 around here about as you please. Therefore you must 
 stand in on a fairly intimate basis with the family 
 circle. I'd like to know what hold a rotten crook like 
 Doctor Crang has got on Claire Veniza that she should 
 be willing to marry him, when she doesn't love him. 
 I'd like to know why a girl like Claire Veniza drives 
 alone at night to a gambling hell to " 
 
 "That's enough!" Hawkins' voice rose abruptly, 
 peremptorily. He advanced again threateningly on 
 John Bruce. "Don't you dare to say one word against 
 my against against her. I'll choke the life out of 
 you, if you do! Who are you, anyway? You are ask- 
 ing a lot of questions. How did you get here in the 
 first place? You answer that! I've always meant to 
 ask you. You answer that and leave Claire out of 
 it!" 
 
 John Bruce whistled softly. 
 
 "I can't very well do that," he said quietly, "because 
 it was Claire who brought me here." 
 
 "Claire brought you!" The old blue eyes grew very 
 hard and very steady. "That's a lie ! She never saw 
 you after you got out at the corner that night until you 
 came in through the window here. She didn't tell you
 
 ALLIES 121 
 
 where she lived. She didn't invite you here. She's 
 not that kind, and, sick though you may be, I'll not 
 keep my hands off you, if " 
 
 "Steady, Hawkins steady 1" said John Bruce, his 
 voice as quiet as before. "We seem to possess a com- 
 mon bond. You seem to be pretty fond of Claire. 
 Well, so am I. That ought to make us allies." He 
 held out his hand suddenly to the old man. "I had 
 just asked Claire to marry me when you came to the 
 door." 
 
 Hawkins stared from the outstretched hand into 
 John Bruce's eyes, and back again at the outstretched 
 hand. Bewilderment, hesitation, a curious excitement 
 was in his face. 
 
 "You asked Claire to marry you?" He swallowed 
 hard. "You you want to marry Claire? I why?" 
 
 "Why?" John Bruce echoed helplessly. "Good 
 Lord, Hawkins, you are a queer one ! Barring beasts 
 like Crang, why does a man ordinarily ask a woman to 
 marry him? Because he loves her. Well, I love 
 Claire. I loved her from the moment I saw her. I 
 followed her, or, rather, that old bus of yours, here 
 that night. And that is how, after that fight at Ratti's 
 when I got out the back door and into the lane, I 
 crawled over here for sanctuary. I said Claire brought 
 me here. You understand now, don't you? That's 
 how she brought me here because I loved her that 
 night. But it is because of Crang" his voice grew 
 hard "that I am telling you this. I love her now 
 and a great deal too much, whether she could ever care 
 for me or not, to see her in the clutches of a crook, 
 and her life wrecked by a degenerate cur. And some- 
 how" his hand was still extended "I thought you
 
 122 PAWNED 
 
 seemed to think enough of her to feel the same way 
 about this marriage for I imagine you must know 
 about it. Well, Hawkins, where do you stand? There's 
 something rotten here. Are you for Claire, or the 
 dope-eater?" 
 
 "Oh, my God!" Hawkins whispered huskily. And 
 then almost blindly he snatched at John Bruce's hand 
 and wrung it hard. "I I believe you're straight," he 
 choked. "I know you are. I can see it in your eyes. 
 I wouldn't ask anything more in the world for her 
 than a man's honest love. And she ain't going to marry 
 that devil! You understand?" His voice was rising 
 in a curious cracked shrillness. "She ain't ! Not while 
 old Hawkins is alive !" 
 
 John Bruce drew his brows together in a puzzled 
 way. 
 
 "I pass you up, Hawkins," he said slowly. "I can't 
 make you out. But if you mean what you say, and if 
 you trust me " 
 
 "I'm going to trust you!" There was eagerness, 
 excitement, a tremble in the old man's voice. "I've 
 got to trust you after what you've said. I ain't slept 
 for nights on account of this. It looks like God sent 
 you. You wait! Wait just a second, and I'll show 
 you how much I trust you." 
 
 John Bruce straightened up in his chair. Was the 
 old man simply erratic, or perhaps a little irresponsible 
 or what? Hawkins had pattered across the floor, 
 had cautiously opened the door, and was now peering 
 with equal caution into the outer room. Apparently 
 satisfied at last, he closed the door noiselessly, and 
 started back across the room. And then John Bruce 
 knew suddenly an indefinable remorse at having some-
 
 ALLIES 123 
 
 how misjudged the shabby old chauffeur, whose figure 
 seemed to totter now a little as it advanced toward 
 him. Hawkins' face was full of misery, and the old 
 blue eyes were brimming with tears. 
 
 "It it ain't easy" Hawkins' voice quavered "to 
 say what I got to say. There ain't no one on earth but 
 Paul Veniza knows it; but you've got a right to know 
 after what you've said. And I've got to tell you for 
 Claire's sake too, because it seems to me there ain't 
 nobody going to help me save her the way you are. 
 She she's my little girl. I I'm Claire's father." 
 
 John Bruce stared numbly at the other. He could 
 find no words ; he could only stare. 
 
 "Yes, look at me !" burst out the old man finally, and 
 into his voice there came an infinite bitterness. "Look 
 at my clothes! I'm just what I look like! I ain't no 
 good and that's what has kept my little girl and me 
 apart from the day she was born. Yes, look at me ! 
 I don't blame you!" 
 
 John Bruce was on his feet. His hand reached out 
 and rested on the old man's shoulder. 
 
 "That isn't the way to trust me, Hawkins," he said 
 gently. "What do your clothes matter? What do 
 your looks matter? What does anything in the world 
 matter alongside of so wonderful a thing as that which 
 you have just told me? Straighten those shoulders, 
 Hawkins; throw back that head of yours. Her father! 
 Why, you're the richest man in New York, and you've 
 reason to be the proudest!" 
 
 John Bruce was smiling with both lips and eyes into 
 the other's face. He felt a tremor pass through the 
 old man's frame; he saw a momentary flash of joy and
 
 124 PAWNED 
 
 pride light up the wrinkled, weather-beaten face and 
 then Hawkins turned his head away. 
 
 "God bless you," said Hawkins brokenly; "but you 
 don't know. She's all I've got; she's the only kith and 
 kin I've got in all the world, and oh, my God, how 
 these old arms have ached just to take her and hold 
 her tight, and and" He lifted his head sud- 
 denly, met John Brace's eyes, and a flush dyed his 
 cheeks. "She's my little girl; but I lie when I say I 
 love her. It's drink I love. That's my shame, John 
 Bruce you've got it all now. I pawned my soul, and 
 I pawned my little girl for drink." 
 
 "Hawkins," said John Bruce huskily, "I think you're 
 a bigger man than you've any idea you are." 
 
 "D'ye mean that?" Hawkins spoke eagerly only 
 to shake his head miserably the next instant. "You 
 don't understand," he said. "I as good as killed her 
 mother with drink. She died when Claire was born. 
 I brought Claire here, and Paul Veniza and his wife 
 took her in. And Paul Veniza was right about it. 
 He made me promise she wasn't to know I was her 
 father until until she would have a man and not a 
 drunken sot to look after her. That's twenty years 
 ago. I've tried. God knows I've tried, but it's beaten 
 me ever since. Paul's wife died when Claire was six- 
 teen, and Claire's run the house for Paul and and 
 I'm Hawkins just Hawkins the old cab driver that's 
 dropping in the harness. Just Hawkins that shuffers 
 the traveling pawn-shop now that Paul's quit the regu- 
 lar shop. That's what I am just old Hawkins, who's 
 always swearing to God he's going to leave the booze 
 alone." 
 
 John Bruce did not speak for a moment. He
 
 ALLIES 125 
 
 returned to his chair and sat down. Somehow he 
 wanted to think; somehow he felt that he had not quite 
 grasped the full significance of what he had just heard. 
 He looked at Hawkins. Hawkins had sunk into a 
 chair by the table, and his face was buried in his hands. 
 
 And then John Bruce smiled. 
 
 "Look here, Hawkins," he said briskly, "let's talk 
 about something else for a minute. Tell me about Paul 
 Veniza and this traveling pawn-shop. It's a bit out of 
 the ordinary, to say the least." 
 
 Hawkins raised his head, and his thoughts for the 
 moment diverted into other channels, his face bright- 
 ened, and he scratched at the scanty fringe of hair 
 behind his ear. 
 
 "It ain't bad, is it?" he said with interest. "I'm 
 kind of proud of it too, 'cause I guess mabbe, when 
 all's said and done, it was my idea. You see, when 
 Paul's wife died, Paul went all to pieces. He ain't 
 well now, for that matter nowhere near as well as 
 he looks. I'm kind of scared about Paul. He keeps 
 getting sick turns once every so often. But when the 
 wife died he was just clean broken up. She'd been his 
 right hand from the start in his business here, and 
 I dunno it just seemed to affect him that way. He 
 didn't want to go on any more without her. And as 
 far as money was concerned he didn't have to. Paul 
 ain't rich, but he's mighty comfortably off. Anyway, 
 he took the three balls down from over the door, and 
 he took the signs off the windows, and in comes the 
 carpenters to change things around here, and there 
 ain't any more pawn-shop." 
 
 Hawkins for the first time smiled broadly. 
 
 "But it didn't work out," said Hawkins. "Paul's
 
 126 PAWNED 
 
 got a bigger business and a more profitable one to-day 
 than he ever had before in his life. You see, he had 
 been at it a good many years, and he had what you 
 might call a private connection swells up on the 
 Avenue, mostly ladies, but gents too, who needed 
 money sometimes without having it printed in the 
 papers, and they wouldn't let Paul alone. Paul ain't 
 got a hair in his head that ain't honest and fair and 
 square and above-board and they were the ones that 
 knew it better than anybody else. See?" 
 
 "Yes," said John Bruce. "Go on, Hawkins," he 
 prompted. 
 
 "Well," said Hawkins, "I used to drive an old han- 
 som cab in those days, and I used to drive Paul out on 
 those private calls to the swell houses. And then when 
 Mrs. Paul died and Paul closed up the shop here he 
 kind of drew himself into his shell all round, and 
 mostly he wouldn't go out any more, though the swells 
 kept telephoning and telephoning him. He'd only go 
 to just a few people that he'd done business with since 
 almost the beginning. He said he didn't want to go 
 around ringing people's doorbells, and being ushered 
 into boudoirs or anywhere else, and he was settling 
 down to shun everybody and everything. It wasn't 
 good for Paul. And then a sort of crazy notion struck 
 me, and I chewed it over and over in my mind, and 
 finally I put it up to Paul. In the mood he was in, it 
 just caught his fancy; and so I bought a second-hand 
 closed car, and fitted it up like you saw, and learned 
 to drive it and that's how there came to be the 
 traveling pawn-shop. 
 
 "After that, there wasn't anything to it. It caught 
 everybody else's fancy as well as Paul's, and it began
 
 ALLIES 127 
 
 to get him out of himself. The old bus, as you called 
 it, was running all the time. Lots of the swells who 
 really didn't want to pawn anything took a ride and did 
 a bit of business just for the sake of the experience, 
 and the regular customers just went nutty over it, they 
 were that pleased. 
 
 "And then some one who stood in with that swell 
 gambling joint where we picked you up must have 
 tipped the manager off about it, and he saw where he 
 could do a good stroke of business make it a kind of 
 advertisement, you know, besides doing away with any 
 lending by the house itself, and he put up a proposition 
 to Paul where Paul was to get all the business at regu- 
 lar rates, and a bit of a salary besides on account of 
 the all-night hours he'd have to keep sometimes. Paul 
 said he'd do it, and turned the salary over to me; and 
 they doped out that pass word about a trip to Persia 
 to make it sound mysterious and help out the adver- 
 tising end, and well, I guess that's all." 
 
 John Bruce was twirling the tassel of his dressing 
 gown again abstractedly; but now he stopped as Haw- 
 kins rose abruptly and came toward him. 
 
 "No it ain't all," said Hawkins, a curious note 
 almost of challenge in his voice. "You said something 
 about Claire going to that gambling joint. It was the 
 first time she had ever been there. That night Paul 
 was out when they telephoned. You must be one of 
 their big customers, 'cause they wouldn't listen to any- 
 thing but a trip to Persia right on the spot. They were 
 so set on it that Claire said it would be all right. She 
 sent for me. At first I wasn't for it at all, but she said 
 it seemed to be of such importance, and that there 
 wasn't anything else to do. Claire knows a bit of
 
 128 PAWNED 
 
 jewelry or a stone as well as Paul does, and I knew 
 Claire could take care of herself; and besides, although 
 she didn't know it, it it was her own old father driv- 
 ing the car there with her." 
 
 "Thank you, Hawkins," said John Bruce simply; and 
 after a moment: "It doesn't make the love I said I 
 had for her show up very creditably to me, does it 
 that I should have had any questions?" 
 
 Hawkins shook his head. 
 
 "I didn't mean it that way," he said earnestly. "It 
 would have been a wonder if you hadn't. Anyway, 
 you had a right to know, and it was only fair to 
 Claire."
 
 IX 
 
 THE CONSPIRATORS 
 
 JOHN BRUCE fumbled in the pocket of hi.s dress- 
 ing gown and produced a cigarette ; but he was a 
 long time in lighting it. 
 
 "Hawkins," he demanded abruptly, "is Paul Veniza 
 in the house now?" 
 
 "He's upstairs, I think," Hawkins answered. "Do 
 you want him?" 
 
 "Yes in a moment," said John Bruce slowly. "I've 
 been thinking a good deal while you were talking. I 
 can only see things one way; and that is that the time 
 has come when you should take your place as Claire's 
 father." 
 
 The old man drew back, startled. 
 
 "Tell Claire?" he whispered. Then he shook his 
 head miserably. "No, no! I I haven't earned the 
 right. I I can't break my word to Paul." 
 
 "I do not ask you to break your word to Paul. I 
 want you to earn the right now." 
 
 Hawkins was still shaking his head. 
 
 "Earn it now after all these years! How can I?" 
 
 "By promising that you won't drink any more," said 
 John Bruce quietly. 
 
 Hawkins' eyes went to the floor. 
 
 "Promise!" he said in a shamed way. "I've been 
 promising that for twenty years. Paul wouldn't 
 
 129
 
 1 30 PAWNED 
 
 believe me. I wouldn't believe myself. I went and 
 got drunker than I've been in all my life the night that 
 dog said he was going to marry Claire, and Claire said 
 it was true, and wouldn't listen to anything Paul could 
 say to her against it." 
 
 "I would believe you," said John Bruce gravely. 
 
 For an instant Hawkins' face glowed, while tears 
 came into the old blue eyes and then he turned hur- 
 riedly and walked to the window, his back to John 
 Bruce. 
 
 "It's no use," he said, with a catch in his voice. 
 "You don't know me. Nobody that knows me would 
 take my word for that least of all Paul." 
 
 "I know this," said John Bruce steadily, "that you 
 have never been really put to the test. The test is 
 here now. You'd stop, and stop forever, wouldn't 
 you, if it meant Claire's happiness, her future, her sal- 
 vation from the horror and degradation and misery 
 and utter hopelessness that a life with a man who is 
 lost to every sense of decency must bring her? I 
 would believe you if you promised under those con- 
 ditions. It seems to me to be the only chance there 
 is left to save her. It is true she believes Paul is her 
 father and accepts him as such, and neither his influ- 
 ence nor his arguments will move her from her deter- 
 mination to marry Crang; but I think there is a chance 
 if she is told your story, if she is brought to her own 
 father through this very thing. I think if you are in 
 each other's arms at last after all these years from just 
 that cause it might succeed where everything else 
 failed. But this much is sure. It has a chance of suc- 
 cess, and you owe Claire that chance. Will you take 
 it, Hawkins? Will you promise?"
 
 THE CONSPIRATORS 131 
 
 There was no answer from the window, only the 
 shaking of the old man's shoulders. 
 
 "Hawkins," said John Bruce softly, "wouldn't it be 
 very wonderful if you saved her, and saved yourself; 
 and wonderful, too, to know the joy of your own 
 daughter's love?" 
 
 The old man turned suddenly from the window, his 
 arms stretched out before him as though in intense 
 yearning; and there was something almost of nobility 
 in the gray head held high on the bent shoulders, some- 
 thing of greatness in the old wrinkled face that seemed 
 to exalt the worn and shabby clothes hanging so form- 
 lessly about him. 
 
 "My little girl," he said brokenly. 
 
 "Your promise, Hawkins," said John Bruce in a low 
 voice. "Will you promise?" 
 
 "Yes," breathed the old man fiercely. "Yes so 
 help me, God! But" he faltered suddenly "but 
 Paul " 
 
 "Ask Paul to come down here," said John Bruce. 
 "I have something to say to both of you more than 
 I have already said to you. I will answer for Paul." 
 
 The old cab driver obeyed mechanically. He 
 crossed the room and went out. John Bruce heard him 
 mounting the stairs. Presently he returned, followed 
 by the tall, straight, white-haired figure of Paul 
 Veniza. 
 
 Hawkins closed the door behind them. 
 
 Paul Veniza turned sharply at the sound, and 
 glanced gravely from one to the other. His eyebrows 
 went up as he looked at John Bruce. John Bruce's 
 face was set.
 
 i 3 2 PAWNED 
 
 "What is the matter?" inquired Paul Veniza anx- 
 iously. 
 
 "I want you to listen first to a little story," said John 
 Bruce seriously and in a few words he told Paul 
 Veniza, as he had told Hawkins, of his love for Claire 
 and the events of the night that had brought him there 
 a wounded man. "And this afternoon," John Bruce 
 ended, "I asked Claire to marry me, and she told me 
 she was going to marry Doctor Crang." 
 
 Paul Veniza had listened with growing anxiety, cast- 
 ing troubled and uncertain glances the while at Haw- 
 kins. 
 
 "Yes," he said in a low voice. 
 
 / ' 
 
 John Bruce spoke abruptly: 
 
 "Hawkins has promised he will never drink again." 
 
 Paul Veniza, with a sudden start, stared at Hawkins, 
 and then a sort of kindly tolerance dawned in his face. 
 
 "My poor friend!" said Paul Veniza as though he 
 were comforting a wayward child, and went over and 
 laid his hand affectionately on Hawkins' arm. 
 
 "I have told Hawkins," went on John Bruce, "that 
 I love Claire, that I asked her to marry me; and Haw- 
 kins in turn has told me he is Claire's father, and how 
 he brought her to you and Mrs. Veniza when she was 
 a baby, and of the pledge he made you then. It is 
 because I love Claire too that I feel I can speak now. 
 You once told Hawkins how he could redeem his 
 daughter. He wants to redeem her now. He has 
 promised never to drink again." 
 
 Paul Veniza's face had whitened a little. Half in a 
 startled, half in a troubled way, he looked once more 
 at John Bruce and then at Hawkins. 
 
 "My poor friend!" he said again.
 
 THE CONSPIRATORS 133 
 
 John Bruce's hand on the arm of his chair clenched 
 suddenly. 
 
 "You may perhaps feel that he should not have told 
 me of his relationship to Claire ; but it was this damna- 
 ble situation with Crang that forced the issue." 
 
 Paul Veniza left Hawkins' side and began to pace 
 the room in an agitated way. 
 
 "No !" he said heavily. "I do not blame Hawkins. 
 We we neither of us know what to do. It is a terri- 
 ble, an awful thing. Crang is like some loathesome crea- 
 ture to her, and yet in some way that I cannot discover 
 he has got her into his power. I have tried everything, 
 used every argument I can with her, pleaded with her 
 and it has been useless." He raised his arms sud- 
 denly above his head, partly it seemed in supplication, 
 partly in menace. "Oh, God!" he cried out. "I, too, 
 love her, for she has really been my daughter through 
 all these years. But I do not quite understand." He 
 turned to Hawkins. "Even if you kept your promise 
 now, my friend, what connection has that with Doctor 
 Crang? Could that in any way prevent this mar- 
 riage?" 
 
 It was John Bruce who answered. 
 
 "It is the last ditch," he said evenly; "the one way 
 you have not tried to tell her her own and her 
 father's story. I do not say it will succeed. But it is 
 the great crisis in her life. It is the one thing in the 
 world that ought to sway her, win her. Her father! 
 After twenty years her father!" 
 
 Paul Veniza's hands, trembling, ruffled through his 
 white hair. Hawkins' fingers fumbled, now with the 
 buttons on his vest, now with the brim of his hat which 
 he had picked up aimlessly from the table; and his eyes,
 
 134 PAWNED 
 
 lifting from the floor, glanced timorously, almost fur- 
 tively, at Paul Veniza, and sought the floor again. 
 
 John Bruce got up from his chair and stepped 
 toward them. 
 
 "I want to tell you something," he said sharply, 
 "that ought to put an end to any hesitation on your 
 parts at any plan, no matter what, that offers even the 
 slightest chance of stopping this marriage. Listen ! 
 Devil though you both believe this Crang to be, you do 
 not either of you even know the man for what he is. 
 While I was lying there" he flung out his hand im- 
 pulsively toward the couch "the safe here in this 
 room was opened and robbed one night. You know 
 that. But you do not know that it was done by Doctor 
 Crang and his confederates. You know what hap- 
 pened. But you do not know that while the 'burglars' 
 pretended to hold Crang at bay with a revolver and 
 then made their 'escape,' Crang, with most of the pro- 
 ceeds of that robbery in his own pockets, was laughing 
 up his sleeve at you." 
 
 Hawkins' jaw had dropped as he stared at John 
 Bruce. 
 
 "Crang did it! You you say Crang committed 
 that robbery?" stammered Paul Veniza. "But you 
 were unconscious 1 Still you you seem to know that 
 the safe was robbed!" 
 
 "Apparently I do!" John Bruce laughed shortly. 
 "Crang too thought I was unconscious, but to make 
 sure he jabbed me with his needle. It took effect just 
 at the right time for Crang just as you and Claire 
 appeared in the doorway. And" his brows knitted 
 together "it seems a little strange that none of you
 
 THE CONSPIRATORS 135 
 
 have ever mentioned it in my presence; that not a word 
 has ever been said to me about it." 
 
 Paul Veniza coughed nervously. 
 
 "You were sick," he said; "too sick, we thought, for 
 any excitement." 
 
 Hawkins suddenly leaned forward ; his wrinkled face 
 was earnest. 
 
 "That is not true !" he said bluntly. "It might have 
 been at first, but it wasn't after you got better. It was 
 mostly your money that was stolen. Claire put it there 
 the night you came here, and " 
 
 "Hawkins!" Paul Veniza called out sharply in 
 reproof. 
 
 "But he knows now it's gone," said the old cabman 
 a little helplessly. He blundered on: "Paul felt he 
 was responsible for your money, and he was afraid you 
 might not want to take it if you knew he had to make 
 it up out of his own pocket, and " 
 
 John Bruce took a step forward, and laid his hand 
 on Paul Veniza's shoulder. He stood silently, looking 
 at the other. 
 
 "It is nothing!" said Paul Veniza, abashed. 
 
 "Perhaps not!" said John Bruce. "But" he 
 turned abruptly away, his lips tight "it just made 
 me think for a minute. In the life I've led men like 
 you are rare." 
 
 "We were speaking of Doctor Crang," said Paul 
 Veniza a little awkwardly. "If you know that Doctor 
 Crang is the thief, then that is the way out of our 
 trouble. Instead of marrying Claire, he will be sent 
 to prison." 
 
 John Bruce shook his head. 
 
 "You said yourself I was unconscious at the time.
 
 136 PAWNED 
 
 You certainly must have found me that way, and 
 Crang would make you testify that for days I had been 
 raving in delirium. I do not think you could convict 
 him on my testimony." 
 
 "But even so," said Paul Veniza, ''there is Claire. 
 If she knew that Crang was a criminal, she " 
 
 "She does know," said John Bruce tersely. 
 
 "Claire knows!" ejaculated Paul Veniza in surprise. 
 "You you told her, then?" 
 
 "No," John Bruce answered. "I said to her: 'Sup- 
 pose I were to tell you that the man is a criminal?' 
 She answered: 'He is a criminal/ I said then: 'Sup- 
 pose he were sent to jail to serve a sentence?' She 
 answered: 'I would marry him when he came out.' ' 
 
 "My God!" mumbled the old cabman miserably. 
 
 "I tell you this," said John Bruce through set teeth, 
 and speaking directly to Paul Veniza, "because it 
 seems to me to be the final proof that mere argument 
 with Claire is useless, and that something more is 
 necessary. I do not ask you to release Hawkins from 
 his pledge; I ask you to believe his promise this time 
 because back of it he knows it may save Claire from 
 what would mean worse than death to her. I believe 
 him; I will vouch for him. Do you agree, Paul 
 Veniza?" 
 
 For an instant the white-haired pawnbroker seemed 
 lost in thought; then he nodded his head gravely. 
 
 "In the last few days," he said slowly, "I have felt 
 that it was no longer my province to masquerade as 
 her father. I know that my influence is powerless. As 
 you have said, it is the crisis, a very terrible crisis, in 
 her life." He turned toward Hawkins, and held out
 
 THE CONSPIRATORS 137 
 
 his hand. "My old friend" his voice broke "I pray 
 Heaven to aid you to aid us all." 
 
 Hawkins' blue eyes filled suddenly with tears. 
 
 "You believe me, too, Paul, this time!" he said in 
 a choking voice. "Listen, Paul! I promise! So help 
 me, God I promise!" 
 
 A lump had somehow risen in John Bruce's throat. 
 He turned away, and for a moment there was silence 
 in the room. And then he heard Paul Veniza speak: 
 
 "She is dear to us all. Let us call her unless, my 
 old friend, you would rather be alone." 
 
 "No, no!" Hawkins cried hurriedly. "I I want 
 you both; but but not now, don't call her now." He 
 swept his hands over his shabby, ill-fitting clothes. "I 
 not like this. I " 
 
 "Yes," said Paul Veniza gently, "I understand and 
 you are right. This evening then at eight o'clock. 
 You will' come back here, my old friend, at eight 
 o'clock. And do you remember, it was in this very 
 room, twenty years ago, that " He did not com- 
 plete his sentence; the hot tears were streaming 
 unashamed down his cheeks. 
 
 John Bruce was staring out of the window, the panes 
 of which seemed curiously blurred. 
 
 "Come," he heard Paul Veniza say. 
 
 And then, as the two men reached the door, John 
 Bruce looked around. Hawkins had turned on the 
 threshold. Something seemed to have transfigured the 
 old cab driver's face. It was illumined. There seemed 
 something of infinite pathos in the head held high, in 
 the drooped shoulders resolutely squared. 
 
 "My little girl !" said Hawkins tenderly. "To-night 
 at eight o'clock my little girl!"
 
 X 
 
 AT FIVE MINUTES TO EIGHT 
 
 BEFORE the rickety washstcmd and in front of 
 the cracked glass that served as a mirror and 
 was suspended from a nail driven into the 
 wall, Hawkins was shaving himself. Perhaps the light 
 from the wheezing gas-jet was over-bad that evening, 
 or perhaps it was only in playful and facetious mood 
 with the mirror acting the role of co-conspirator; Haw- 
 kins' chin smarted and was raw; little specks of red 
 showed here and there through the repeated coats of 
 lather which he kept scraping off with his razor. But 
 Hawkins appeared willing to sacrifice even the skin 
 itself to obtain the standard of smoothness which he 
 had evidently set before himself as his goal. And so 
 over and over again he applied the lather, and hoed it 
 off, and tested the result by rubbing thumb and fore- 
 finger critically over his face. He made no grimace, 
 nor did he show any irritation at the none-too-keen 
 blade that played havoc with more than the lather, nor 
 did he wince at what must at times have been anything 
 but a painless operation. Hawkins' round, weather- 
 beaten face and old watery blue eyes smiled into the 
 mirror. 
 
 On the washstand beside him lay a large, ungainly 
 silver watch, its case worn smooth with years of serv- 
 ice. It had a hunting-case, and it was open. Hawkins 
 glanced at it. It was twenty minutes to eight. 
 
 138
 
 AT FIVE MINUTES TO EIGHT 139 
 
 "I got to hurry," said Hawkins happily. "Just 
 twenty minutes after twenty years." 
 
 Hawkins laid aside the razor, and washed and 
 scrubbed at his face until it shone ; then he went to his 
 trunk and opened it. From underneath the tray he 
 lifted out an old black suit. Perhaps again it was 
 the gas-jet in either baleful or facetious mood, for, as 
 he put on the suit, the cloth in spots seemed to possess, 
 here a rusty, and there a greenish, tinge, and elsewhere 
 to be woefully shiny. Also, but of this the gas-jet could 
 not have been held guilty, the coat and trousers, and 
 indeed the waistcoat, were undeniably most sadly 
 wrinkled. 
 
 And now there seemed to be something peculiarly 
 congruous as between the feeble gas-jet, the cracked 
 mirror, the wobbly washstand, the threadbare strip of 
 carpet that lay beside the iron bed, and the old bent- 
 shouldered figure with wrinkled face in wrinkled finery 
 that stood there knotting with anxious, awkward fin- 
 gers a large, frayed, black cravat about his neck; there 
 seemed to be something strikingly in keeping between 
 the man and his surroundings, a sort of common inti- 
 macy, as it were, with the twilight of an existence that, 
 indeed, had never known the full sunlight of high noon. 
 
 It was ten minutes to eight. 
 
 Hawkins put the silver watch in his pocket, extin- 
 guished the spluttering gas-jet, that hissed at him as 
 though in protest at the scant ceremony with which it 
 was treated, and went down the stairs. He stepped 
 briskly out on the street. 
 
 "Claire!" said Hawkins radiantly. "My little 
 Claire! I'm her daddy, and she's going to know it. 
 I'm going to get her to call me that daddy!"
 
 I 4 o PAWNED 
 
 Hawkins walked on halfway along the block, erect, 
 with a quick, firm step, his head high, smiling into every 
 face he met and turning to smile again, conscious that 
 people as they passed had turned to look back at him. 
 And then very gradually Hawkins' pace slackened, and 
 into his face and eyes there came a dawning anxiety, 
 and the smile was gone. 
 
 "I'm kind of forgetting," said Hawkins presently 
 to himself, "that it ain't just that I'm getting my little 
 girl. I I'm kind of forgetting her trouble. There 
 there's Crang." 
 
 The old man's face was furrowed now deep with 
 storm and care ; he walked still more slowly. He began 
 to mutter to himself. At the corner of the street he 
 raised an old gnarled fist and shook it, clenched, above 
 his head, unconscious and oblivious now that people 
 still turned and looked at him. 
 
 And then a little way ahead of him along the street 
 that he must go to reach the one-time pawn-shop of 
 Paul Veniza, his eyes caught the patch of light that 
 filtered out to the sidewalk from under the swinging 
 doors of the familiar saloon, and from the windows 
 in a more brilliant flood. 
 
 Hawkins drew in a long breath. 
 
 "No, no!" he whispered fiercely.- "I will never go 
 in there again so help me, God ! If I did and and 
 she knew it was her daddy, it would just break her 
 heart like like Crang'll break it." 
 
 He went on, but his footsteps seemed to drag the 
 more now as he approached the saloon. His hand as 
 he raised it trembled; and as he brushed it across his 
 brow it came away wet with sweat. 
 
 The saloon was just a yard away from him now.
 
 AT FIVE MINUTES TO EIGHT 141 
 
 There was a strange, feverish glitter in the blue eyes. 
 His face was chalky white. 
 
 "So help me, God!" Hawkins mumbled hoarsely. 
 
 It was five minutes of eight. 
 
 Hawkins had halted in front of the swinging doors.
 
 XI 
 
 THE RENDEZVOUS 
 
 PAUL VENIZA, pacing restlessly about the 
 room, glanced surreptitiously at his watch, and 
 then glanced anxiously at John Bruce. 
 
 John Bruce in turn stole a look at Claire. His lips 
 tightened a little. Since she had been told nothing, she 
 was quite unconscious, of course, that it mattered at all 
 because it was already long after eight o'clock; that 
 Hawkins in particular, or any one else in general, was 
 expected to join the little evening circle here in what he, 
 John Bruce, had by now almost come to call his room. 
 His forehead gathered in a frown. What was it that 
 was keeping Hawkins? 
 
 Claire's face was full in the light, and as she sat 
 there at the table, busy with some sewing, it seemed 
 to John Bruce that, due perhaps to the perspective of 
 what he now knew, he detected a weariness in her eyes 
 and in sharp lines around her mouth, that he had not 
 noticed before. It was Crang, of course ; but perhaps 
 he too what he had said to her that afternoon his 
 love had not made it any easier for her. 
 
 Paul Veniza continued his restless pacing about the 
 room. 
 
 "Father, do sit down!" said Claire suddenly. 
 "What makes you so nervous to-night? Is anything 
 the matter?" 
 
 142
 
 THE RENDEZVOUS 143 
 
 "The matter? No I No, no; of course not!" said 
 Paul Veniza hurriedly. 
 
 "But I'm sure there is," said Claire, with a positive 
 little nod of her head. "With both of you, for that 
 matter. Mr. Bruce has done nothing but fidget with 
 the tassel of that dressing gown for the last half hour." 
 
 John Bruce let the tassel fall as though it had sud- 
 denly burned his fingers. 
 
 "I? Not at all!" he denied stoutly. 
 
 "Oh, dear!" sighed Claire, with mock plaintiveness. 
 "What bores you two men are, then! I wish I could 
 send out what do you call it? a thought wave, and 
 inspire some one, and most of- all Hawkins, to come 
 over here this evening. He, at least, is never deadly 
 dull." 
 
 Neither of the two men spoke. 
 
 "You don't know Hawkins, do you, Mr. Bruce?" 
 Claire went on. She was smiling now as she looked at 
 John Bruce. "I mean really know him, of course. He's 
 a dear, quaint, lovable soul, and I'm so fond of him." 
 
 "I'm sure he is," said John Bruce heartily. "Even 
 from the little I've seen of him I'd trust him with 
 well, you know" John Bruce coughed as his words 
 stumbled "I mean, I'd take his word for anything." 
 
 "Of course, you would!" asserted Claire. "You 
 couldn't think of doing anything else nobody could. 
 He's just as honest as as well, as father there, and 
 I don't know any one more honest." She smiled at 
 Paul Veniza, and then her face grew very earnest. "I'm 
 going to tell you something about Hawkins, and some- 
 thing that even you never knew, father. Ever since 
 I was old enough to remember any one, I remember 
 Hawkins. And when I got old enough to understand
 
 144 PAWNED 
 
 at all, though I could never get him to talk about it, 
 I knew his life wasn't a very happy one, and perhaps 
 I loved him all the more for that reason. Hawkins 
 used to drink a great deal. Everybody knew it. I 
 I never felt I had the right to speak to him about it, 
 though it made me feel terribly, until until mother 
 died." 
 
 Claire had dropped her sewing in her lap, and now 
 she picked it up again and fumbled with it nervously. 
 
 "I spoke to him then," she said in a low voice. "I 
 told him how much you needed him, father; and how 
 glad and happy it would make me. And and I 
 remember so well his words: 'I promise, Claire. I 
 promise, so help me, God, that I will never drink 
 another drop.' ' Claire looked up, her face aglow. 
 "And I know, no matter what anybody says, that from 
 that day to this, he never has." 
 
 Paul Veniza, motionless now in the center of the 
 room, was staring at her in a sort of numbed fasci- 
 nation. 
 
 John Bruce was staring at the door. He had heard, 
 he thought, a step in the outer room. 
 
 The door opened. 
 
 Hawkins stood there. He plucked at his frayed, 
 black cravat, which was awry. He lurched against the 
 jamb, and in groping unsteadily for support his hat fell 
 from his other hand and rolled across the floor. 
 
 Hawkins reeled into the room. 
 
 "Good hie! good-evenin'," said Hawkins thickly. 
 
 Claire alone moved. She rose to her feet, but as 
 though her weight were too heavy for her limbs. Her 
 lips quivered.
 
 THE RENDEZVOUS 145: 
 
 "Oh, Hawkins!" she cried out pitifully and burst 
 into tears, and ran from the room. 
 
 It seemed to John Bruce that for a moment the 
 room swirled around before his eyes; and then over- 
 him swept an uncontrollable desire to get his hands 
 upon this maudlin, lurching creature. Rage, disgust, 
 a bitter resentment, a mad hunger for reprisal pos- 
 sessed him; Claire's future, her faith which she had 
 but a moment gone so proudly vaunted, were all shat- 
 tered, swept to the winds, by this seedy, dissolute 
 wreck. Her father! No, her shame! Thank God 
 she did not know ! 
 
 "You drunken beast!" he gritted in merciless fury,, 
 and stepped suddenly forward. 
 
 But halfway across the room he halted as though 
 turned to stone. Hawkins wasn't lurching any more. 
 Hawkins had turned and closed the door; and Haw- 
 kins now, with his face white and drawn, a look in his 
 old blue eyes that mingled agony and an utter hopeless- 
 ness, sank into a chair and buried his face in his hands. 
 
 It was Paul Veniza who moved now. He went and 
 stood behind the old cabman. 
 
 Hawkins looked up. 
 
 "You are sober. What does this mean?" Paul 
 Veniza asked heavily. 
 
 Hawkins shook his head. 
 
 "I couldn't do it," he said in a broken voice. "And 
 and I've settled it once for all now. I got to think- 
 ing as I came along to-night, and I found out that it 
 wasn't any good for me to swear I wasn't going to 
 touch anything any more. I'm afraid of myself. I 
 I came near going into the saloon. It it taught me 
 something, that did; because the only way I could get:
 
 146 PAWNED 
 
 by was to promise myself I'd go back there after I'd 
 been here." 
 
 Hawkins paused. A flush dyed his cheeks. He 
 turned around and looked at Paul Veniza again, and 
 then at John Bruce. 
 
 "You don't understand neither of you understand. 
 Once I promised Claire that I'd stop, and and until 
 just now she believed me. And I've hurt her. But I 
 ain't broken her heart. It was only old Hawkins, just 
 Hawkins, who promised her then; it would have been 
 her father who promised her to-night, and and it ain't 
 any good, I'd have broken that promise, I know it now 
 and she ain't ever going to share that shame." 
 
 Hawkins brushed his hands across his eyes. 
 
 "And then," he went on, a sudden fierceness in his 
 voice, "suppose she'd had that on top of Crang, 'cause 
 it ain't sure that knowing who I am would have saved 
 her from him! Oh, my God, she'd better be dead! 
 I'd rather see her dead. You're wrong, John Bruce! 
 It wasn't the way. You meant right, and God bless 
 you; but it wasn't the way. I saw it all so clearly after 
 after I'd got past that saloon; and and then it was 
 all right for me to promise myself that I'd go back. 
 It wouldn't hurt her none then." 
 
 John Bruce cleared his throat. 
 
 "I don't quite understand what you mean by that, 
 Hawkins," he said a little huskily. 
 
 Hawkins rose slowly to his feet. 
 
 "I dressed all up for this," said Hawkins, with a 
 wan smile; "but something's snappeu here inside 
 here." His hand felt a little aimlessly over his heart. 
 "I know now that I ain't ever going to be worthy; and 
 I know now that she ain't ever to know that I that I
 
 THE RENDEZVOUS 147 
 
 I'm her old daddy. And so I I've fixed it just 
 now like you saw so there ain't no going back on it. 
 But I ain't throwing my little girl down. It ain't Claire 
 that's got to be made change her mind it's Crang." 
 He raised a clenched fist. "And Crang's going to 
 change it ! I can swear to that and know I'll keep it, 
 so so help me, God ! And when she's rid of him, she 
 ain't going to have no shame and sorrow from me. 
 That's what I meant." 
 
 "Yes," said John Bruce mechanically. 
 
 "I'm going now," said Hawkins in a low voice. 
 
 "Around by the other way," said Paul Veniza softly. 
 "And I'll go with you, old friend." 
 
 For a moment Hawkins hesitated, and then he 
 nodded his head. 
 
 No one spoke. Paul Veniza's arm was around 
 Hawkins' shoulders as they left the room. The door 
 closed behind them. John Bruce sat down on the edge 
 of his bed.
 
 XII 
 
 THE FIGHT 
 
 FOR a long time John Bruce stared at the closed 
 door; first a little helplessly because the bottom 
 seemed quite to have dropped out of things, 
 and then with set face as the old cabman's words came 
 back to him: "Crang not Claire." And at this, a 
 sort of merciless joy crept into his eyes, and he nodded 
 his head in savage satisfaction. Yes, Hawkins had 
 been right in that respect, and well, it would be 
 easier to deal with Crang! 
 
 And then suddenly John Bruce's face softened. 
 Hawkins! He remembered the fury with which the 
 old man had inspired him as the other had reeled into 
 the room, and Clare, hurt and miserable, had risen 
 from her chair. But he remembered Hawkins in a 
 different way now. It was Hawkins, not Claire, who 
 had been hurt. The shabby old figure standing there 
 had paid a price, and as he believed for Claire's sake, 
 that had put beyond his reach forever what must have 
 meant, what did mean, all that he cherished most in 
 life. 
 
 John Bruce smiled a little wistfully. Somehow he 
 envied Hawkins, so pitifully unstable and so weak 
 his strength ! 
 
 He shook his head in a puzzled way. His thoughts 
 led him on. What a strange, almost incomprehensible, 
 
 148
 
 THE FIGHT 149 
 
 little world it was into which fate, if one wished to call 
 it fate, had flung him I It was an alien world to him. 
 His own life of the past rose up in contrast with it 
 not of his own volition, but because the comparison 
 seemed to insist on thrusting itself upon him. 
 
 He had never before met men like Hawkins and 
 Paul Veniza. He had met drunkards and pawnbrok- 
 ers. Very many of them! He had lived his life, or, 
 rather, impoverished it with a spendthrift hand, among 
 just such classes but he was conscious that it would 
 never have been the poorer for an intimacy with either 
 Hawkins or Paul Veniza. 
 
 John Bruce raised his head abruptly. The front 
 door had opened. A moment later a footstep sounded 
 in the outer room, and then upon the stairs. That 
 would be Paul Veniza returning of course, though he 
 hadn't been gone very long; or was it that he, John 
 Bruce, had been sitting here staring at that closed door 
 for a far longer period than he had imagined? 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders, dismissing the interrup- 
 tion from his mind, and again the wistful smile flickered 
 on his lips. 
 
 So that was why nothing had been said in his hear- 
 ing about the robbery! Queer people with their 
 traveling pawn-shop, which was bizarre; and their 
 standards of honesty, and their unaffected hospitality 
 which verged on the bizarre too, because their genuine- 
 ness and simplicity were so unostentatious and so 
 rare. And somehow, suddenly, as he sat there with his 
 chin cupped now in his hands, he was not proud of this 
 contrast himself on the one hand, a drunkard and 
 a pawnbroker on the other ! 
 
 And then John Bruce raised his head again, sharply
 
 i 5 o PAWNED 
 
 this time, almost in a startled way. Was that a cry 
 in a woman's voice? It was muffled by the closed door, 
 
 and it was perhaps therefore his imagination; but 
 
 j- ; 
 
 He was on his feet. It had come again. No door 
 could have shut it out from his ears. It was from 
 Claire upstairs, and the cry seemed most curiously to 
 mingle terror and a passionate anger. He ran across 
 the .room and threw the door open. It was strange I 
 It would be Paul Veniza in a new role, if the gentle, 
 white-haired old pawnbroker could inspire terror in 
 any one ! 
 
 A rasping, jeering oath in a man's voice this time 
 reached him. John Bruce, a sudden fury whipping 
 his blood into fire, found himself stumbling up the 
 stairs. It wasn't Veniza! His mind seemed to con- 
 vert that phrase into a sing-song refrain: "It wasn't 
 Veniza! It wasn't Veniza!" 
 
 Claire's voice came to him distinctly now, and therfc 
 was the same terror in it, the same passionate anger 
 that he had distinguished in her cry: 
 
 "Keep away from me ! I loathe you ! It is men like 
 you that prompt a woman to murder! But but 
 instead, I have prayed God with all my soul to let me 
 
 die before " Her voice ended in a sharp cry, a 
 
 scuffle of feet. 
 
 It was Crang in there ! John Bruce, now almost at 
 the top of the stairs, was unconscious that he was pant- 
 ing heavily from his exertions, unconscious of every- 
 thing save a new refrain that had taken possession of 
 his mind: "It was Crang in there! It was Crang in 
 there!" 
 
 It was the door just at the right of the landing.
 
 THE FIGHT 151 
 
 Crang's voice came from there ; and the voice was high, 
 like the squeal of an enraged animal : 
 
 "You're mine! I've got a right to those red lips, 
 you vixen, and I'm going to have them ! A man's got 
 the right to take the girl he's going to marry in his 
 arms ! Do you think I'm going to be held off forever? 
 You're mine, and " 
 
 The words were lost again in a cry from Claire, and 
 in the sound of a struggle a falling chair, the scuffle 
 once more of feet. 
 
 John Bruce flung himself across the hall and against 
 the door, It yielded without resistance, and the impe- 
 tus of his own rush carried him, staggering, far into 
 the room. Two forms were circling there under the 
 gas light as though in the throes of some mad dance 
 only the face of the woman was deathly white, and her 
 small clenched fists beat frantically at the face of the 
 man whose arms were around her. John Bruce sprang 
 forward. He laughed aloud, unnaturally. His brain, 
 his mind, was whirling; but something soft was 
 grasped in his two encircling hands, and that was why 
 he laughed-^-because his soul laughed. His fingers 
 pressed tighter. It was Crang's throat that was soft 
 under his fingers. 
 
 Suddenly the room swirled around him. A giddi- 
 ness seemed to seize upon him and that soft thing in 
 his grip slipped from his fingers and escaped him. He 
 brushed his hand across his eyes. It would pass, of 
 course. It was strange that he should go giddy like 
 that, and that his limbs should be trembling as though 
 with the ague ! Again he brushed his hand across his 
 eyes. It would pass off. He could see better now. 
 Claire had somehow fallen to the floor; but she was
 
 I 5 2 PAWNED 
 
 rising to her knees now, using the side of the bed for 
 support, and 
 
 Her voice rang wildly through the room. 
 
 "Look out! Oh, look out!" she cried. 
 
 To John Bruce it seemed as though something leaped 
 at him out of space and struck. The blow, aimed at 
 his side, which was still bandaged, went home. It 
 brought an agony that racked and tore and twisted at 
 every nerve in his body. It wrung a moan from his 
 lips, it brought the sweat beads bursting out upon his 
 forehead but it cleared his brain. 
 
 Yes, it was Doctor Crang but disreputable in 
 appearance as he had never before seen the man. 
 Crang's clothes were filthy and unkempt, as though 
 the man had fallen somewhere in the mire and was 
 either unconscious or callous of the fact; his hair 
 draggled in a matted way over his forehead, and 
 though his face worked with passion, and the passion 
 brought a curious hectic rose-color to supplant the cus- 
 tomary lifeless gray of his cheeks, the eyes were most 
 strangely glazed and fixed. 
 
 And again John Bruce laughed and with a vicious 
 guard swept aside a second blow aimed at his side, and 
 his left fist, from a full arm swing, crashed to the point 
 of Ooctor Crang's jaw. But the next instant they had 
 closed, their arms locked around each other's waists, 
 their chins dug hard into each other's shoulders. And 
 they rocked there, and swayed, and lurched, a curious 
 impotence in their ferocity and toppled to the floor. 
 
 John Bruce's grip tightened as Doctor Crang fought 
 madly now to tear himself free and they rolled over 
 and over in the direction of the door. Hot and cold 
 waves swept over John Bruce. He was weak, piti-
 
 THE FIGHT 153 
 
 fully weak, barely a convalescent. But he was content 
 to call it an equal fight. He asked for no other odds 
 than Crang himself had offered. The man for oiice 
 had over-steeped himself with dope, and was near the 
 point of collapse. He had read that in the other's 
 eyes, as surely as though he had been told. And so 
 John Bruce, between his gasping breaths, still laughed, 
 and rolled over and over always toward the door. 
 
 From somewhere Claire's voice reached John Bruce, 
 imploringly, in terror. Of course ! That was why he 
 was trying to get to the door, to get out of her room 
 through respect for her to get somewhere where he 
 could finish this fight between one man who could 
 scarcely stand upon his feet through weakness, and 
 another whose drug-shattered body was approaching 
 that state of coma which he, John Bruce, had been 
 made to suffer on the night the robbery had been com- 
 mitted. And by the same needle! He remembered 
 that I Weak in body, his mind was very clear. And 
 so he rolled over and over, always toward the door, 
 because Crang was heedless of the direction they were 
 taking, and he, John Bruce, was probably not strong 
 enough in any other way to force the other out of the 
 room where they could finish this. 
 
 They rolled to the threshold and out into the hall. 
 John Bruce loosened his hold suddenly, staggered to 
 his feet, and leaned heavily for an instant against the 
 jamb of the door. But it was only for an instant. 
 Crang was the quicker upon his feet. Like a beast 
 there was slaver on the other's lips, his hands clawed 
 the air, his face was contorted hideously like the face 
 of one demented, one from whom reason had flown, 
 and with whom maniacal passion alone remained and
 
 i 54 PAWNED 
 
 from the banister railing opposite the door Crang 
 launched himself forward upon John Bruce again. 
 
 "She's mine!" he screamed. "I've been watching 
 you two! I'll teach you! She's mine mine! I'll 
 finish you for this!" 
 
 John Bruce side-stepped the rush, and Crang pitched 
 with his head against the door jamb, but recovering, 
 whirled again, and rushed again. The man began to 
 curse steadily now in a low, abominable monotone. It 
 seemed to John Bruce that he ought to use his fist as 
 a cork and thrust it into the other's mouth to bottle up 
 the vile flow of epithets that included Claire, and 
 coupled his name with Claire's. Claire might hear! 
 The man was raving, insane with jealousy. John 
 Bruce struck. His fist found its mark on Crang's lips, 
 and found it again; but somehow his arm seemed to 
 possess but little strength, and to sag back at the elbow 
 from each impact. He writhed suddenly as Crang 
 reached him with another blow on his side. 
 
 And then they had grappled and locked together 
 again, and were swaying like drunken men, now to this 
 side, and now to that, of the narrow hall. 
 
 It could not last. John Bruce felt his knees giving 
 way beneath him. He had under-estimated Crang's 
 resistance to the over-dose of drug. Crang was the 
 stronger and seemed to be growing stronger every 
 instant. Or was it his own increasing weakness? 
 
 Crang's fist with a short-arm jab smashed at John 
 Bruce's wounded side once more. The man struck 
 nowhere else always, with the cunning born of hell, 
 at the wounded side. John Bruce dug his teeth into 
 his lips. A wave of nausea swept over him. He felt 
 his senses leaving him, and he clung now to the other,
 
 THE FIGHT 155 
 
 close, tight-pressed, as the only means of protecting 
 his side. 
 
 He forced himself then desperately to a last effort. 
 There was one chance left, just one. In the livid face, 
 in the hot, panting breath with which the other 
 mouthed his hideous profanity, there was murder. 
 Over his shoulder, barely a foot away, John Bruce 
 glimpsed the staircase. He let his weight sag with 
 seeming helplessness upon Crang. It brought Crang 
 around in a half circle. Crang's back was to the stairs 
 now. John Bruce let his hands slip slowly from their 
 hold upon the other, as though the last of his strength 
 was ebbing away. He accepted a vicious blow on his 
 wounded side as the price that he must pay, a blow 
 that brought his chin crumpling down upon his breast 
 and then with every ounce of remaining strength he 
 hurled himself at Crang, and Crang's foot stumbled 
 out into space over the topmost stair, and with a scream 
 of infuriated surprise the man pitched backward. 
 
 John Bruce grasped with both hands at the banister 
 for support. Something went rolling, rolling, rolling 
 down the stairs with queer, dull thumps like a sack of 
 meal. His hands slipped from the banister, and he sat 
 limply down on the topmost step and laughed. He 
 laughed because that curious looking bundle at the 
 bottom there began a series of fruitless efforts to roll 
 back up the stairs again. 
 
 And then the front door opened. He could see it 
 from where he sat, and Paul Veniza that was Paul 
 Veniza, wasn't it? stepped into the room below, and 
 cried out, and ran toward the bundle at the foot of 
 the stairs. 
 
 John Bruce felt some one suddenly hold him back
 
 i 5 6 PAWNED 
 
 from pitching down the stairs himself, but neverthe- 
 less he kept on falling and falling into some great pit 
 that grew darker and darker the farther he went down, 
 and this in spite of some one who tried to hold him 
 back, and and who had a face that looked like 
 Claire's, only it was as as white as driven snow. And 
 as he descended into the blackness some one screamed 
 at him: "I'll finish you for this!" And screamed it 
 again only the voice kept growing fainter. And = 
 
 and then he could neither see nor hear any more. 
 ******* 
 
 When John Bruce opened his eyes again he was lying 
 on his cot. A little way from him, their backs turned, 
 Claire and Paul Veniza were whispering earnestly 
 together. He watched them for a moment, and gradu- 
 ally as his senses became normally acute again he 
 caught Claire's words : 
 
 "He is not safe here for a moment. Father, we 
 must get him away. I am afraid. There is not a 
 threat Doctor Crang made to-night but that he is quite 
 capable of carrying out." 
 
 "But he is safe for to-night," Paul Veniza answered 
 soothingly. "I got Crang home to bed, and as I told 
 you, he is too badly bruised and knocked about to move 
 around any before morning at least." 
 
 "And yet I am afraid," Claire insisted anxiously. 
 "Fortunately Mr. Bruce's wound hasn't opened, and 
 
 he could be moved. Oh, if Hawkins only hadn't " 
 
 She stopped, and twisted her hands together nervously. 
 
 Paul Veniza coughed, averted his head suddenly and 
 in turning met John Bruce's eyes and stared in a 
 startled way. 
 
 "Claire!" John Bruce called softly.
 
 THE FIGHT 157 
 
 "Oh!" she cried, and ran toward him. "You " 
 
 "Yes," smiled John Bruce. "And I have been lis- 
 tening. Why isn't it safe for me to stay here any 
 longer? On account of Crang' s wild threats?" 
 
 "Yes," she said in a low voice. 
 
 John Bruce laughed. 
 
 "But you don't believe them, do you?" he asked. 
 "At least, I mean, you don't take them literally." 
 
 Claire's lips were trembling. 
 
 "There is no other way to take them." She was 
 making an effort to steady her voice. "It is not a ques- 
 tion of believing them. I know only too well that he 
 will carry them out if he can. You are not safe here, 
 or even in New York now but less safe here in this 
 house than anywhere else." 
 
 John Bruce came up on his elbow. 
 
 "Then, Claire, isn't this the end?" he demanded 
 passionately. "You know him for what he is. You 
 do not love him, for I distinctly heard you tell him that 
 you loathed him, as I went up the stairs. Claire, I am 
 not asking for myself now only for you. Tell me, 
 tell Paul Veniza here, to whom it will mean so much, 
 that you have now no further thought of marriage with 
 that" John Bruce's voice choked "with Crang." 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "I cannot tell you that," she said dully, "for I am 
 going to marry Doctor Crang." 
 
 John Bruce's face hardened. He looked at Paul 
 Veniza. The old pawnbroker had his eyes on the floor, 
 and was ruffling his white hair helplessly with his 
 fingers. 
 
 "Why?" John Bruce asked. 
 
 "Because I promised," Claire said slowly.
 
 '158 PAWNED 
 
 "But a promise like that!" John Bruce burst out. 
 "A promise that you will regret all your life is " 
 
 "No!" Her face was half averted; her head was 
 lowered to hide the tears that suddenly welled into 
 her eyes. "No; it is a promise that I that I am glad 
 now I made." 
 
 "Glad!" John Bruce sat upright. She had turned 
 her head away from the cot. He could not see her 
 face. "Glad!" he repeated incredulously. 
 
 "Yes." Her voice was scarcely audible. 
 
 For a moment John Bruce stared at her; then a 
 bitter smile tightened his lips, and he lay back on the 
 cot, and turned on his side away from both Claire and 
 Paul Veniza. 
 
 When John Bruce looked around again, only Paul 
 Veniza was in the room. 
 
 "I don't understand," said Paul Veniza he was still 
 ruffling his hair, still with his eyes on the floor. 
 
 "I do," said John Bruce grimly. "Claire is right. 
 It isn't safe for me to stay here, and I'll go to-night. 
 
 If only Hawkins hadn't " He laughed a little 
 
 harshly. "But I'll go to-night, just the same. A taxi 
 will do quite as well."
 
 XIII 
 
 TRAPPINGS OF TINSEL 
 
 UNDER the shaded light on his table, in his 
 private sitting room in the Bayne-Miloy 
 Hotel, John Bruce had been writing steadily 
 for half an hour but the sheets of paper over which 
 his pen had traveled freely and swiftly were virgin 
 white. He paused now, remained a moment in 
 thought, and then added a line to the last sheet. No 
 mark was left, but from the movement of the pen this 
 appeared to be a signature. 
 
 He gathered the sheets together, folded them 
 neatly, and slipped them into an envelope. He 
 replaced the cap on the fountain pen he had been using, 
 placed the pen in his vest pocket, and from another 
 pocket took out another pen that was apparently iden- 
 tical with the first. With this second pen, in black ink, 
 he addressed the envelope to one Gilbert Larmon in 
 San Francisco. He sealed the envelope, stamped it, 
 put it in his pocket, returned the second fountain pen 
 to his vest pocket, lighted a cigarette, leaned back in 
 his chair, and frowned at the ascending spirals of 
 smoke from the cigarette's tip. 
 
 The report which he had just written to Larmon, 
 explaining his inaction during the past weeks, had 
 been an effort not physical, but mental. He had 
 somehow, curiously, felt no personal regret for the 
 
 159
 
 160 PAWNED 
 
 enforced absence from his "work," and he now felt no 
 enthusiasm at the prospect of resuming it. He had 
 had no right to tinge or color his letter to Larmon with 
 these views ; nor had he intended to do so. Perhaps he 
 had not; perhaps he had. He did not know. The ink 
 originated by the old Samoan Islander had its disad- 
 vantages as well as its advantages. He could not now 
 read the letter over once it was written! 
 
 He flicked the ash irritably from his cigarette. He 
 had been back here in the hotel now for two days and 
 that feeling had been constantly growing upon him. 
 Why? He did not know except that the cause seemed 
 to insist on associating itself with his recent illness, his 
 life in the one-time pawn-shop of Paul Veniza. But, 
 logically, that did not hold water. Why should it? 
 He had met a pawnbroker who roamed the streets at 
 night in a fantastic motor car, driven by a drunkard; 
 and he had fallen in love with a girl who was glad 
 she was going to marry a dope-eating criminal. Good 
 God, it was a spectacle to make 
 
 John Bruce's fist crashed suddenly down on the desk 
 beside him, and he rose from his chair and stood there 
 staring unseeingly before him. That was not fair! 
 What was uppermost now was the recrudescence of the 
 bitterness that had possessed him two nights ago when 
 he had returned from Paul Veniza's to the hotel here. 
 Nor was it any more true than it was fair ! What of 
 the days and nights of nursing, of care, of the ungrudg- 
 ing and kindly hospitality they had given to an utter 
 stranger? Yes, he knew! Only only she had said 
 she was glad! 
 
 He began to pace the room. He had left Veniza's 
 in bitterness. He had not seen Claire. It was a strange
 
 TRAPPINGS OF TINSEL 161 
 
 sort of love he boasted, little of unselfishness in it, 
 much of impatience, and still more of intolerance I 
 That it was a hopeless love in so far as he was con- 
 cerned did not place him before himself in any better 
 light. If he cared for her, if there was any depth of 
 feeling in this love he claimed to have, then at least 
 her happiness, her welfare and her future could not 
 be extraneous and indifferent considerations to him. 
 And on the spur of the moment, piqued, in spite of Paul 
 Veniza's protestations, he had left that night without 
 seeing Claire again! 
 
 He had been ashamed of himself. Yesterday, he 
 had telephoned Claire. He had begged her forgive- 
 ness. He had not meant to say more but he had! 
 Something in her voice had no, not invited ; he could 
 not say that but had brought the passion, pleading 
 almost, back into his own. It had seemed to him that 
 she was in tears at the other end of the wire ; at least, 
 bravely as she had evidently tried to do so, she had 
 been unable to keep her voice under control. But she 
 had evaded an answer. There had been nothing to 
 forgive, she had said. He had told her that he must 
 see her, that he would see her again. And then almost 
 hysterically, over and over again, she had begged him 
 to attempt nothing of the sort, but instead to leave 
 New York because she insisted that it was not safe 
 for him to stay even in the city. 
 
 John Bruce hurled the butt of his cigarette in the 
 direction of the cuspidor, and clenched his fist. Crang! 
 Safe from Crang! He laughed aloud harshly. He 
 asked nothing 'better than to meet Crang again. He 
 would not be so weak the next time ! And the sooner 
 the better 1
 
 1 62 PAWNED 
 
 He gnawed at his under lip, as he continued to- pace 
 the room. To-day, he had telephoned Claire again 
 but he had not spoken to her this time. He had not 
 been surprised at the news he had received, for he 
 remembered that Hawkins had once told him that the 
 old pawnbroker was in reality far from well. Some 
 one, he did not know who, some neighbor probably, 
 had answered the phone. Paul Veniza had been taken 
 ill. Claire had been up with him all the previous night, 
 and was then resting. 
 
 John Bruce paused abruptly before the desk at which 
 he had been writing, and looked at his watch. It was 
 a little after ten o'clock. He was going back to "work" 
 again to-night. He smiled suddenly, and a little quizzi- 
 cally, as he caught sight of himself in a mirror. What 
 would they say the white-haired negro butler, and 
 the exquisite Monsieur Henri de Lavergne, for in- 
 stance when the millionaire plunger, usually so 
 immaculate in evening clothes, presented himself at 
 their door in a suit of business tweeds? 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. Down at Ratti's that 
 night his apparel it was a matter of viewpoint had 
 been a source of eminent displeasure, and as such had 
 been very effectively disposed of. He had had no 
 opportunity to be measured for new clothes. 
 
 The smile faded, and he stood staring at the desk. 
 The millionaire plunger I It seemed to jar somehow 
 on his sensibilities. Work! That was a queer way, 
 too, to designate it. He was going to take up his work 
 again to-night, pick up the threads of his life again 
 where he had dropped them. A bit ragged those 
 threads, weren't they? Frayed, as it were! 
 
 What the devil was the matter with him, anyway?
 
 TRAPPINGS OF TINSEL 163 
 
 There was money in it, a princely existence. What 
 more could any one ask? What did Claire, his love 
 for a girl who was glad to marry same one else infi- 
 nitely worse than he was, have to do with it? Ah, s-he 
 did have something to do with it, then! Nonsense! 
 It was absurd! 
 
 He took a key abruptly from his pocket, and 
 unlocked one of the drawers of the desk. From the 
 drawer he took out a large roll of bills. The hotel 
 management had sent to the bank and cashed a check 
 for him that afternoon. He had not forgotten that 
 he would need money, and plenty of it, at the tables 
 this evening. Well, he was quite ready to go now, and 
 it was time; it would be halfpast ten before he got 
 there, and 
 
 "The devil!" said John Bruce savagely and sud- 
 denly tossed the money back into the drawer, and 
 locked the drawer. "If I don't feel like it to-night, 
 why should I? I guess I'll just drop around for a little 
 convalescent visit, and let it go at that." 
 
 John Bruce put on a light overcoat, and left the 
 room. In the lobby downstairs he posted his letter to 
 Gilbert Larmon. He stepped out on the street, and 
 from the rank in front of the hotel secured a taxi. 
 Twenty minutes later he entered Gilbert Larmon's 
 New York gambling hell. 
 
 Here he received a sort of rhapsodical welcome 
 from the exquisite Monsieur Henri de Lavergne, which 
 embraced poignant regret at the accident that had 
 befallen him, and unspeakable joy at his so-splendid 
 recovery. It was a delight so great to shake the hand 
 of Mr. Bruce again that Monsieur Henri de Lavergne 
 complained bitterly at the poverty of language which
 
 1 64 PAWNED 
 
 prevented an adequate expression of his true and sin- 
 cere feelings. Also, Monsieur Henri de Lavergne, if 
 he were not trespassing, would be flattered indeed with 
 Mr. Bruce's confidence, if Mr. Bruce should see fit to 
 honor him with an account of how the accident had 
 happened. He would be desolated if in any way it 
 could be attributable to any suggestion that he, Mon- 
 sieur de Lavergne, on behalf of the house which he had 
 the honor to represent as manager, had made to Mr. 
 
 Bruce which might have induced 
 
 "Not at all!" John Bruce assured him heartily. He 
 smiled at Monsieur de Lavergne. The other knew 
 nothing of Claire's presence in the car that night, and 
 for Claire's sake it was necessary to set the man's mind 
 so completely at rest that the subject would lack fur- 
 ther interest. The only way to accomplish that was 
 to appear whole-heartedly frank. John Bruce became 
 egregiously frank. "It was just my own damned curi- 
 osity," he said with a wry smile. "I got out of that 
 ingenious contraption at the corner after going around 
 the block, and, well, my curiosity, as I said, got the 
 better of me. I followed the thing, and found out 
 where Mr. Veniza lived. I started on my way back, 
 but I didn't get very far. I got into trouble with a 
 rather tough crowd just around the corner, who didn't 
 like my shirt front, I believe they said. The fight 
 ended by my being backed into a wine shop where I 
 was stabbed, but from which I managed to escape into 
 the lane. I was about all in, and the only chance I 
 could see was a lighted window on the other side of a 
 low fence. I crawled in the window, and flopped on 
 the floor. It proved to be Mr. Veniza's house."
 
 TRAPPINGS OF TINSEL 165 
 
 "Pour I' amour du dieu!" exclaimed Monsieur Henri 
 de Lavergne breathlessly. 
 
 "And which also accounts," said John Bruce pleas- 
 antly, "for the apology I must offer you for my appear- 
 ance this evening in these clothes. The mob in that 
 respect was quite successful." 
 
 "But that you are back!" Monsieur de Lavergne's 
 hands were raised in protest. "That is alone what 
 matters. Monsieur Bruce knows tljat in any attire it 
 is the same here for monsieur as though he were at 
 home." 
 
 "Thank you!" said John Bruce cordially. "I have 
 only dropped in through the urge of old habits, I guess. 
 I'm hardly on my feet yet, and I thought I'd just watch 
 the play for a little while to-night." 
 
 "And that, too," said Monsieur Henri de Lavergne 
 with a bow, as John Bruce moved toward the staircase, 
 "is entirely as monsieur desires." 
 
 John Bruce mounted the stairs, and began a stroll 
 through the roulette and card rooms. The croupiers 
 and dealers nodded to him genially; those of the 
 "guests" whom he knew did likewise. He was treated 
 with marked courtesy and consideration by every 
 attendant in the establishment. Everything was ex- 
 actly as it had been on his previous visits. There were 
 the soft mellow lights; the siren pur of the roulette 
 wheel, the musical click of the ball as it spun around 
 on its little fateful orbit; the low, quiet voices of the 
 croupiers and dealers; the well-dressed players grouped 
 around the tables, the hilarious and the grim, the devil- 
 may-care laugh from one, the thin smile from another. 
 It was exactly the same, all exactly the same, even to 
 the table in the supper room, free to all though laden
 
 1 66 PAWNED 
 
 with every wine and delicacy that money could procure ; 
 but somehow, even at the end of half an hour, where 
 he was wont to be engrossed till daylight, John Bruce 
 became excessively bored. 
 
 Perhaps it was because he was simply an on-looker, 
 and not playing himself. He had drawn close to a 
 group around a faro bank. The play was grim earnest 
 and for high stakes. No, it wasn't that! He did not 
 want to play. Somehow, rather, he knew a slight sense 
 both of contempt and disgust at the eager clutch and 
 grasp of hands, the hoarse, short laugh of victory, the 
 snarl of defeat, the trembling fingers of the more 
 timorous who staked with Chance and demanded that 
 the god be charitable in its omnipotence and toss them 
 crumbs! 
 
 Well, what was he caviling about? It was the life 
 he had chosen. It was his life work. Wasn't he 
 pleased with it? He had certainly liked it well enough 
 in the old days to squander upon it the fair-sized for- 
 tune his father had left him. He decidedly had not 
 gone into that infernal compact with Larmon blind- 
 folded. Perhaps it was because in those days he played 
 when he wanted to; and in these, and hereafter, he 
 would play because he had to. Pefhaps it was only 
 that, to-night, there was upon him the feeling, which 
 was natural enough, and which was immeasurably 
 human too, that it was irksome to be a slave, to be 
 fettered and shackled and bound to anything, even to 
 what one, with one's freedom his own, was ordinarily 
 out of choice most prone to do and delight in. Well, 
 maybe! But that was not entirely a satisfactory or 
 conclusive solution either. 
 
 He looked around him. There seemed to be some-
 
 TRAPPINGS OF TINSEL 167 
 
 thing hollow to-night in these trappings of tinsel; and 
 something not only hollow, but sardonic in his connec- 
 tion with them that he should act as a monitor over 
 the honesty of those who in turn acted as the agents of 
 Larmon in an already illicit traffic. 
 
 "Oh, hell!" said John Bruce suddenly. 
 
 The dealer looked up from the table, surprise 
 mingling with polite disapproval. Several of the play- 
 ers screwed around their heads. 
 
 "That's what I say!" snarled one of the latter with 
 an added oath, as a large stack of chips was swept 
 away from him. 
 
 Some one touched John Bruce on the elbow. He 
 turned around. It was one of the attendants. 
 
 "You are being asked for downstairs, Mr. Bruce," 
 the man informed him. 
 
 John Bruce followed the attendant. In the hall 
 below the white-haired negro doorkeeper came toward 
 him. 
 
 "I done let him in, Mistuh Bruce, suh," the old 
 darky explained a little anxiously, " 'cause he done say, 
 Mistuh Bruce, that it was a case of most particular 
 illness, suh, and " 
 
 John Bruce did not wait for more. It was Veniza 
 probably a turn for the worse. He nodded, and 
 passed hurriedly along the hall to where, near the door, 
 a poorly dressed man, hat in hand and apparently 
 somewhat ill at ease in his luxurious surroundings, 
 stood waiting. 
 
 "I am Mr. Bruce," he said quickly. "Some one is 
 critically ill, you say? Is it Mr. Veniza?" 
 
 "No, sir," the man answered. "I don't know any- 
 thing about Mr. Veniza. It's Hawkins."
 
 !68 PAWNED 
 
 "Hawkins!" ejaculated John Bruce. 
 
 "Yes, sir," said the man. He shuffled his feet. 
 "I I guess you know, sir." 
 
 John Bruce for a moment made no comment. Haw- 
 kins! Yes, he knew! Hawkins had even renounced 
 his pledge, hadn't he? Not, perhaps, that that would 
 have made any difference! 
 
 "Bad?" he asked tersely. 
 
 "I'm afraid so, sir," the man replied. "I've seen a 
 good bit of Hawkins off and on in the last two years, 
 sir, because I room in the same house; but I've never 
 seen him like this. He's been out of his head and 
 clawing the air, sir, if you know what I mean. He's 
 over that now, but that weak he had me scared once, 
 sir, that he'd gone." 
 
 "What does the doctor say?" John Bruce bit off 
 his words. 
 
 The man shook his head. 
 
 "He wouldn't have one, sir. It's you he wants. 
 You'll understand, sir, that he's been alone. I don't 
 know how long ago he started on this spree. It was 
 only by luck that I walked into his room to-night. I 
 was for getting a doctor at once, of course, but he 
 wouldn't have it; he wanted you. At times, sir, he 
 was crying like a baby, only he hadn't the strength of 
 one left. Knowing I could run her, me being a motor- 
 truck driver, he told me to take that car he drives and 
 go to the hotel for you, and if you weren't there to try 
 here which I've done, sir, as you see, and I hope 
 you'll come back with me. I don't know what to do, 
 though I'm for picking up a doctor on the way back 
 whether he wants one or not." 
 
 John Bruce turned abruptly, secured his coat and
 
 TRAPPINGS OF TINSEL 169 
 
 hat, motioned the man to lead the way, and followed 
 the other out of the house and down the steps to the 
 sidewalk. 
 
 The traveling pawn-shop was at the curb. The man 
 opened the door, and John Bruce stepped inside and 
 was instantly flung violently down upon a seat. The 
 door closed. The car started forward. And in a sud- 
 den glare of light John Bruce stared into the muzzle 
 of a revolver, and, behind the revolver, into a bruised 
 and battered face, which was the face of Doctor 
 Crang.
 
 XIV 
 
 THE TWO PENS 
 
 JOHN BRUCE stared for a moment longer at the 
 revolver that held a steady bead between his eyes, 
 and at the evil face of Crang that leered at him 
 from the opposite seat; then he deliberately turned his 
 head and stared at the face of still another occupant of 
 the car a man who sat on the seat beside him. He 
 was trapped and well trapped! He recognized the 
 other to be the man known as Birdie, who had partici- 
 pated on a certain night in the robbery of Paul Veniza's 
 safe. It was quite plain. The third man in that rob- 
 bery, whose face he had not seen at the time, was 
 undoubtedly the man who had brought the "message" 
 a few minutes ago, and who was now, with almost 
 equal certainty, engaged in driving the car. Thieving, 
 at least, was in the trio's line! They must somehow 
 or other have stolen the traveling pawn-shop from 
 Hawkins ! 
 
 He smiled grimly. If it had been Birdie now who 
 had brought the message he would never have fallen 
 into the trap ! Crang had played in luck and won by 
 a very narrow margin, for Crang was naturally in 
 ignorance that he, John Bruce, had ever seen either of 
 the men before. And then John Bruce thought of the 
 bulky roll of bills which by an equally narrow margin 
 was not in his pocket at that moment, and his smile 
 deepened. 
 
 170
 
 THE TWO PENS 171 
 
 Crang spoke for the first time. 
 
 "Take his gun away from him, if he's got one!" he 
 snarled tersely. 
 
 "It's in the breast pocket of my coat," said John 
 Bruce imperturbably. 
 
 Birdie, beside John Bruce, reached over and secured 
 the weapon. 
 
 John Bruce leaned back in his seat. The car was 
 speeding rapidly along now. 
 
 The minutes passed. None of the three men spoke. 
 Crang sat like some repulsive gargoyle, leering 
 maliciously. 
 
 John Bruce half closed his eyes against the uncanny 
 fascination of that round black muzzle which never 
 wavered in its direction, and which was causing him 
 to strain too intently upon it. What was the game? 
 How far did Crang intend to go with his insane 
 jealousy? How far would Crang dare to go? The 
 man wasn't doped to-night. Perhaps he was even the 
 more dangerous on that account. Instead of mouthing 
 threats, there was something ominous now, it seemed, 
 in the man's silence. John Bruce's lips drew together. 
 He remembered Claire's insistence that Crang had 
 meant what he said literally and Claire had repeated 
 that warning over the telephone. Well, if she were 
 right, it meant murder. 
 
 From under his half closed lids, John Bruce looked 
 around the car. The curtains, as they always were, 
 were closely drawn. The interior was lighted by that 
 same soft central light, only the light was high up now 
 near the roof of the car. Well, if it was to be murder, 
 why not now? The little velvet-topped table was not 
 in place, and there was nothing between himself and
 
 i ?2 PAWNED 
 
 that sneering, sallow face. Yes, why not now and 
 settle it! 
 
 He straightened almost imperceptibly in his seat, as 
 impulse suddenly bade him fling himself forward upon 
 Crang. Why not? The sound of a revolver shot would 
 be heard in the street, and Crang might not even dare 
 to fire at all. And then John Bruce's glance rested on 
 the man beside him and impulse gave way to common 
 sense. He had no intention of submitting tamely and 
 without a struggle to any fate, no matter what it might 
 be, that Crang proposed for him, but that struggle 
 would better come when there was at least a chance. 
 There was no chance here. Birdie, on the seat beside 
 him, held a deadlier and even more effective weapon 
 than was Crang's revolver, a silent thing a black-jack. 
 
 "Wait I Don't play the fool ! You'll get a better 
 chance than this !" the voice of what he took to be com- 
 mon sense whispered to him. 
 
 The car began to go slower. It swerved twice as 
 though making sharp turns; and then, running still 
 more slowly, began to bump over rough ground. 
 
 Crang spoke again. 
 
 "You can make all the noise you want to, if you 
 think it will do you any good," he said viciously; "but 
 if you make a move you are not told to make you'll be 
 carried the rest of the way! Understand?" 
 
 John Bruce .did not answer. 
 
 The car stopped. Birdie opened the door on his 
 side, and stepped to the ground. He was joined by 
 the man who had driven the car, and who, as John 
 Bruce now found he had correctly assumed, had acted 
 as the decoy at the gambling house. 
 
 "Get out !" ordered Doctor Crang curtly.
 
 THE TWO PENS 173 
 
 John Bruce followed Birdie from the car. It was 
 dark out here, exceedingly dark, but he could make 
 out that the car had been driven into a narrow lane, 
 and that they were close to the wall of a building of 
 some sort. The two men gripped him by his arms. 
 He felt the muzzle of Crang's revolver pressed into 
 the small of his back. 
 
 "Mind your step !" cautioned Birdie gruffly. 
 
 It was evidently the entrance to a cellar. John Bruce 
 found himself descending a few short steps; and then, 
 on the level again, he was guided forward through 
 what was now pitch blackness. A moment more and 
 they had halted, but not before John Bruce's foot had 
 come into contact with a wall or partition of some 
 kind in front of him. One of the men who gripped his 
 arms knocked twice with three short raps in quick suc- 
 cession. 
 
 A door opened in front of them, and for an instant 
 John Bruce was blinded by a sudden glare of light; but 
 the next instant, his eyes grown accustomed to the 
 transition, he saw before him a large basement room, 
 disreputable and filthy in appearance, where half a 
 dozen men sat at tables drinking and playing cards. 
 
 A shove from the muzzle of Crang's revolver urged 
 John Bruce forward into an atmosphere that was foul, 
 hot and fetid, and thick with tobacco smoke that 
 floated in heavy, sinuous layers in mid-air. He was 
 led down the length of the room toward another door 
 at the opposite end. The men at the tables, as he 
 passed them, paid him little attention other than to 
 leer curiously at him. They greeted Birdie and his 
 companion with blasphemous familiarity; but their
 
 i 7 4 PAWNED 
 
 attitude toward Crang, it seemed to John Bruce, was 
 one of cowed and abject respect. 
 
 John Bruce's teeth closed hard together. This was 
 a nice place, an ominously nice place a hidden den of 
 the rats of the underworld, where Crang was obviously 
 the leader. He was not so sure now that the prompt- 
 ings of so-called common sense had been common sense 
 at all! His chances of escaping, practically hopeless 
 as they had been in the car, would certainly have been 
 worth trying in view of this ! He began to regret his 
 "common sense" bitterly now. 
 
 He was in front of the door toward which they had 
 been heading now. It was opened by Birdie, and John 
 Bruce was pushed into a small, dimly-lighted, cave-like 
 place. Crang said something in a low voice to the 
 two men, and, leaving them outside, entered himself, 
 closing the door only partially behind him. 
 
 For a moment they faced each other, and then Crang 
 laughed tauntingly, in menace. 
 
 John Bruce's eyes, from Crang's sallow face, and 
 from Crang's revolver, swept coolly over his surround- 
 ings. A mattress, a foul thing, lay on the ground in 
 one corner. There was no flooring here in the cellar. 
 A small incandescent bulb hung from the roof. There 
 was one chair and a battered table nothing else; not 
 even a window. 
 
 "It was like stealing from a child!" sneered Crang 
 suddenly. "You poor mark!" 
 
 "Quite so!" said John Bruce calmly. "And the 
 more so since I was warned that you were quite capable 
 of murder. I suppose that is what I am here for." 
 
 "Oh, you were warned, were you?" Crang took an 
 abrupt step forward, his lips -working. An angry
 
 THE TWO PENS 175 
 
 purple clouded the pallor of his face. "More of that 
 love stuff, eh? Well, by God, here's the end of it! 
 I'll teach you with your damned sanctimonious airs to 
 fool around the girl I'm going to marry! You snivell- 
 ing hypocrite, you didn't tell her who you were, did 
 you?" 
 
 John Bruce stared blankly. 
 
 "Who I am?" he repeated. "What do you mean?" 
 
 Crang for the moment was silent. He seemed to 
 be waging a battle with himself to control his passion. 
 
 "I'm too clever a man to lose my temper, now I've 
 got you!" he rasped finally. "That's about the size 
 of your mentality! The sweet, na'ive, innocent role! 
 Yes, I said a snivelling hypocrite! You don't eat 
 dope, but perhaps you've heard of a man named 
 Larmon Mr, Gilbert Larmon, of San Francisco!" 
 
 To John Bruce it seemed as though Crang's words 
 in their effect were something like one of those blows 
 the same man had dealt him on his wounded side in 
 that fight of the other night. They seemed to jar 
 him, and rob his mind of quick thinking and virility 
 and yet he was quite sure that not a muscle of his face 
 had moved. 
 
 "You needn't answer," Crang grinned mockingly. 
 "If you haven't met him, you'll have the opportunity 
 of doing so in a few hours. Mr. Larmon will arrive 
 in New York to-night in response to the telegram you 
 sent him." 
 
 "I know you said you were clever," said John Bruce 
 shortly, "and I have no doubt this is the proof of it! 
 But what is the idea? I did not send a telegram to 
 any one. 
 
 "Oh, yes, you did!" Crang was chuckling evilly.
 
 i 7 6 PAWNED 
 
 "It was something to the effect that Mr. Larmon's 
 immediate presence in New York was imperative ; that 
 you were in serious difficulties. And in order that 
 Mr. Larmon might have no suspicions or anxiety 
 aroused as to his own personal safety, he was to go 
 on his arrival to the Bayne-Miloy Hotel; but was, at 
 the same time, to register under the name of R. L. 
 Peters, and to make no effort to communicate with you 
 until you gave him the cue. The answer to the tele- 
 gram was to be sent to a er quite different ad- 
 dress. And here's the answer." 
 
 His revolver levelled, Crang laid a telegram on the 
 table, and then backed away a few steps. 
 
 John Bruce picked up the message. It was dated 
 from San Francisco several days before, and was au- 
 thentic beyond question. It was addressed to John 
 Bruce in the care of one William Anderson, at an 
 address which he took to be somewhere over on the 
 East Side. He read it quickly: 
 
 Leaving at once and will follow instructions. Arrive Wed- 
 nesday night. Am exceedingly anxious. 
 
 GILBERT LARMON. 
 
 "This is Wednesday night," sneered Crang. 
 
 John Bruce laid down the telegram. That Crang 
 in some way had discovered his, John Bruce's connec- 
 tion with Larmon, was obvious. But how and what 
 did it mean? He smiled coldly. There was no use 
 in playing the fool by denying any knowledge of 
 Larmon. It was simply a question of exactly how 
 much Crang knew. 
 
 "Well?" he inquired indifferently. 
 
 The door was pushed open, and Birdie came in. He
 
 THE TWO PENS 177 
 
 carried pen and ink, a large sheet of paper, and an 
 envelope. 
 
 Crang motioned toward the table. 
 
 "Put them down there and get out!" he ordered 
 curtly; and then as the man obeyed, he stared for an 
 instant in malicious silence at John Bruce. "I guess 
 we're wasting time!" he snapped. "I sent the tele- 
 gram to Larmon a few days ago, and I know all about 
 you and Larmon, and his ring of gambling houses. 
 You talked your fool head off when you were delirious 
 understand? And " 
 
 John Bruce, his face suddenly white, took a step 
 forward and stopped, and shrugged his shoulders. 
 Crang' s outflung revolver was on a level with his eyes. 
 And then John Bruce turned his back deliberately, and 
 walked to the far end of the little room. 
 
 Crang laughed wickedly. 
 
 "I am afraid I committed a breach of medical eti- 
 quette," he said. "I sent to San Francisco and got 
 the dope on the quiet about this Mr. Larmon. I found 
 out that he is an enormously wealthy man; and I also 
 found out that he poses as an immaculate pillar of 
 society. It looks pretty good, doesn't it, Bruce for 
 me? Two birds with one stone; you for trying to 
 get between me and Claire ; and Larmon coughing up 
 the dough to save your hide and save himself from 
 being exposed for what he is!" 
 
 John Bruce made no answer. They were not so 
 fanciful now, not so unreal and wandering, those 
 dreams when he had been ill, those dreams in which 
 there had been a man with a quill toothpick, and an- 
 other with a sinister, loathsome face, whose head was 
 always cocked in a listening attitude.
 
 1 78 PAWNED 
 
 "Well, I guess you've got it now, all of it, haven't 
 you?" Crang snarled. "It's lucky for you Larmon's 
 got the coin, or I'd pass you out for what you did the 
 other night. As it is you're getting out of it light. 
 There's paper on the table. You write him a letter 
 that will get him down here with a blank check in his 
 pocket. I'll help you to word it." Crang smiled un- 
 pleasantly. "He will be quite comfortable here while 
 the check is going through the bank; for it would be 
 most unfortunate, you know, if he had a chance to 
 stop payment on it. And I might say that I am not 
 worrying at all about any reprisals through the trac- 
 ing of the check afterward, for if Mr. Larmon is pay- 
 ing me to keep my mouth shut there is no fear of his 
 opening his own." 
 
 John Bruce turned slowly around. 
 
 "And if I don't?" he asked quietly. 
 
 Crang studied the revolver in his hand for a mo- 
 ment. He looked up finally with a smile that was 
 hideous in its malignancy. 
 
 "I'm not sure that I particularly care," he said. 
 "You are going to get out of my path in any case, 
 though my personal inclination is to snuff you out, and" 
 his voice rose suddenly "damn you, I'd like to see 
 you dead; but on the other hand, my business sense 
 tells me that I'd be better off with, say, a hundred 
 thousand dollars in my pocket. Do you get the idea, 
 my dear Mr. Bruce? I am sure you do. And as 
 your medical advisor, for your health is still very 
 much involved, I would strongly urge you to write 
 the letter. But at the same time I want to be per- 
 fectly frank with you. There is a tail to it as far as 
 you are concerned. I have a passage in my pocket
 
 THE TWO PENS 179 
 
 a first-class passage, in fact a stateroom where you can 
 be secured so that I may make certain you do not leave 
 the ship prematurely at the dock for South America, 
 on a steamer sailing to-morrow afternoon. The pas- 
 sage is made out in the name of John Bruce." 
 
 "You seem to have taken it for granted that I would 
 agree to your proposal," said John Bruce pleasantly. 
 
 "I have," Crang answered shortly. "I give you 
 credit in some respects for not being altogether a 
 fool." 
 
 "In other words," said John Bruce, still pleasantly, 
 "if I will trap Mr. Larmon into coming here so that 
 you will have him in your power, and can hold him 
 until you have squeezed out of him what you consider 
 the fair amount he should pay as blackmail, or do 
 away with him perhaps, if he is obstinate, I am to go 
 free and sail for South America to-morrow afternoon; 
 failing this, I am to snuff out I think you called it 
 at the hands of either yourself or this gentlemanly 
 looking band of apaches you have gathered around 
 you." 
 
 "You haven't made any mistake so far!" said Crang 
 evenly. He jerked his hand toward the table. "It's 
 that piece of paper there, or your hide." 
 
 "Yes," said John Bruce slowly. He stared for an 
 instant, set-faced, into Crang's eyes. "Well, then, go 
 ahead!" 
 
 Crang's eyes narrowed. 
 
 "You mean," his voice was hoarse with menace, 
 "you mean " 
 
 "Yes!" said John Bruce tersely. "My hide!" 
 
 Crang did not answer for a moment. The revolver 
 in his hand seemed to edge a little nearer to John
 
 1 8o PAWNED 
 
 Bruce as though to make more certain of its aim. 
 Crang's eyes were alight with passion. 
 
 John Bruce did not move. It was over this sec- 
 ond or the next. Crang's threats were literal. 
 Claire had said so. He knew it. It was in Crang's 
 eyes a sort of unholy joy, a madman's frenzy. Well, 
 why didn't the man fire and have done with it? 
 
 And then suddenly Crang's shoulders lifted in a 
 mocking shrug. 
 
 "Maybe you haven't got this straight," he said 
 between closed teeth. "I guess I've paid you the 
 compliment of crediting you with a quicker intelli- 
 gence than you possess! I'll give you thirty minutes 
 alone to think it over and figure out where you stand." 
 
 Crang backed to the door. 
 
 The door closed. John Bruce heard the key turn in 
 the lock. He stared about him at the miserable sur- 
 roundings. Thirty minutes! He did not need thirty 
 minutes, or thirty seconds, to realize his position. He 
 was not even sure that he was thankful for the re- 
 prieve. It meant half an hour more of life, but 
 
 Cornered like a rat! To go out at the hands of a 
 degenerate dope fiend . . . the man had been cunning 
 enough . . . Hawkins! 
 
 John Bruce paced his little section of the cellar. His 
 footsteps made no sound on the soft earth. This was 
 his condemned cell; his warders a batch of gunmen 
 whose trade was murder. 
 
 Larmon ! They had not been able to trick Larmon 
 into their power so easily, because there wasn't any 
 Hawkins. No, there was John Bruce. John Bruce 
 was the bait. Queer! Queer that he had ever met 
 Larmon, and queer that the end should come like this
 
 THE TWO PENS 181 
 
 Faustus hadn't had his fling yet. That quill toothpick 
 with which he had signed 
 
 John Bruce stood stock still his eyes suddenly 
 fastened on the piece of paper on the table. . 
 
 "My God!" John Bruce whispered hoarsely. 
 
 He ran silently to the door and listened. He could 
 hear nothing. He ran back to the table, threw himself 
 into the chair, and snatching the sheet of paper toward 
 him, took out a fountain pen from his pocket. Near 
 the lower edge of the paper, and in a minutely small 
 hand, he began to write rapidly. 
 
 At the end of a few minutes John Bruce stood up. 
 There was neither sign nor mark upon the paper, save 
 an almost invisible impression made by his thumb 
 nail, which he had set as a sign post, as it were, to 
 indicate where he had begun to write. It was a large 
 sheet of unruled paper, foolscap in size, and there was 
 but little likelihood of reaching so far down with the 
 letter that Crang was so insistent upon having, but he 
 did not propose in any event to superimpose anything 
 over what he had just written. He could always turn 
 the sheet and begin at the top on the other side ! 
 
 Again he began to pace up and down across the 
 soft floor, but now there was a grim smile on his face. 
 Behind Larmon and his enormous wealth lay Lar- 
 mon's secret organization, that, once set in motion, 
 would have little difficulty in laying a dozen Crangs, 
 by the heels. And Crang was yellow. Let Crang but 
 for an instant realize that his own skin was at stake, 
 and he would squeal without hesitation and what had 
 narrowly escaped being tragedy would dissolve into 
 opera bouffe. Also, it was very nice indeed of Crang 
 to see that the message reached Larmon's hands!
 
 1 82 PAWNED 
 
 And it was the way out for Claire, too! It was 
 Crang who had mentioned something about two birds 
 with one stone, wasn't it? Claire! John Bruce 
 frowned. Was he so sure after all? There seemed to 
 be something unfathomable between Claire and 
 Crang; the bond between them one that no ordinary 
 means would break. 
 
 His brain seemed to go around in cycles now 
 Claire, Larmon, Crang; Claire, Larmon, Crang. . . . 
 He lost track of time until suddenly he heard a key 
 rattle in the lock. And then, quick and silent as a cat 
 in his movements, he slipped across the earthen floor, 
 and flung himself face down upon the mattress. 
 
 A moment more, and some one prodded him 
 roughly. His hair was rumpled, his face anxious and 
 dejected, as he raised himself on his elbow. Crang 
 and two of his apaches were standing over him. One 
 of the latter held an ugly looking stiletto. 
 
 "Stand him up !" ordered Crang. 
 
 John Bruce made no resistance as the two men 
 jerked him unceremoniously to his feet. 
 
 Crang came and stared into his face. 
 
 "I guess from the look of you," Crang leered, 
 "you've put in those thirty minutes to good advantage. 
 You're about ready to write that letter, aren't you?" 
 
 John Bruce looked around him miserably. He 
 shook his head. 
 
 "No no; I I can't," he said weakly. "For God's 
 sake, Crang, you you know I can't." 
 
 "Sure I know!" said Crang imperturbably. He 
 nodded to the man with the stiletto. "He's more used 
 to steel than bullets, and he likes it better. Don't 
 keep him waiting."
 
 THE TWO PENS 183 
 
 John Bruce felt the sudden prick of the weapon on 
 his flesh it went a little deeper. 
 
 "Wait! Stop!" he screamed out in a well-simu- 
 lated paroxysm of terror. "I I'll write it." 
 
 "I thought so!" said Crang coolly. "Well, go over 
 there to the table then, and sit down." He turned to 
 the two men. "Beat it!" he snapped and the room 
 empty again, save for himself and John Bruce, he 
 tapped the sheet of paper with the muzzle of his re- 
 volver. "I'll dictate. Pick up that pen!" 
 
 John Bruce obeyed. He circled his lips with his 
 tongue. 
 
 "You you won't do Larmon any harm, will you?" 
 he questioned abjectly. "I my life's worth more 
 than a little money, if it's only that, and and, if 
 that's all, I I'm sure he'd rather pay." 
 
 "Don't apologize!" sneered Crang. "Go on now, 
 and write. Address him as you always do." 
 
 John Bruce dipped the pen in the ink, and wrote in 
 a small hand: 
 
 "Dear Mr. Larmon: " 
 
 He looked up in a cowed way. 
 
 "All right!" grunted Crang. "I guess we'll kill an- 
 other bird, too, while we're at it." He smiled crypti- 
 cally. "Go on again, and write!" 
 
 And John Bruce wrote as Crang dictated : 
 
 "I'm here in my rooms in the same hotel with you, 
 but am closely watched. Our compact is known. I 
 asked a girl to marry me, and in doing so felt she had 
 the right to my full confidence. She did me in. 
 She " 
 
 John Bruce's pen had halted. 
 
 "Go on!" prompted Crang sharply. "It's got to
 
 1 84 PAWNED 
 
 i 
 
 sound right for Larmon so that he will believe it. 
 He's not a fool, is he?" 
 
 "No," said John Bruce. 
 
 "Well, go on thenl" 
 
 And John Bruce wrote : 
 
 "She was all the time engaged to the head of a gang 
 of crooks." Crang's malicious chuckle interrupted his 
 dictation. 
 
 "I'm not sparing myself, you see. Go on!" 
 
 John Bruce continued his writing: 
 
 "They are after blackmail now, and threaten to ex- 
 pose you. I telegraphed you to come under an alias 
 because we are up against it and you should be on the 
 spot ; but if they knew you were here they would only 
 attach the more importance to it, and the price would 
 go up. They believe you are still in San Francisco, 
 and that I am communicating with you by mail. They 
 are growing impatient. You can trust the bearer of 
 this letter absolutely. Go with him. He will take 
 you where we can meet without arousing any suspicion. 
 I am leaving the hotel now. If possible we should not 
 risk more than one conference together, so bring a 
 blank check with you. There is no other way out. 
 It is simply a question of the amount. I am bitterly 
 sorry that this has happened through me. John 
 Bruce." 
 
 Crang, with his revolver pressed into the back of 
 John Bruce's neck, leaned over John Bruce's shoulder 
 and read the letter carefully. 
 
 "Fold it, and put it in that envelope without seal- 
 ing it, and address the envelope to Mr. R. L. Peters 
 at the Bayne-Miloy Hotel I" he instructed. 
 
 John Bruce folded the letter. As he did so, he
 
 THE TWO PENS 185 
 
 noted that his signature was a good two or three inches 
 above the thumb nail mark. Ke placed the letter in 
 the envelope, and addressed the latter as Crang had 
 directed. 
 
 Crang moved around to the other side of the table, 
 tucked the envelope into his pocket, and grinned mock- 
 ingly. 
 
 And then without a word John Bruce got up from 
 his chair, and flung himself face down on the mattress 
 again.
 
 XV 
 
 THE CLEW 
 
 PAUL VENIZA, propped up in bed on his 
 pillows, followed Claire with his eyes as she 
 moved about the room. It was perhaps because 
 he had been too ill of late to notice anything, that he 
 experienced now a sudden shock at Claire's appear- 
 ance. She looked pale and drawn, and even her move- 
 ments seemed listless. 
 
 "What's to-night?" he asked abruptly. 
 
 "Wednesday, father," she answered. 
 
 Paul Veniza plucked at the counterpane. It was 
 all too much for Claire. Besides besides Crang, she 
 had been up all night for the last two nights, and since 
 Monday she had not been out of the house. 
 
 "Put on your hat, dear, and run over and tell Haw- 
 kins I want to see him," he smiled. 
 
 Claire stared at the old pawnbroker. 
 
 "Why, father," she protested, "it's rather late, 
 isn't it? And, besides, you would be all alone in the 
 house." 
 
 "Nonsense!" said Paul Veniza. "I'm all right. 
 Much better. I'll be up to-morrow. But I particularly 
 want to see Hawkins to-night." He did not particu- 
 larly want to see Hawkins or any one else, but if he 
 did not have some valid excuse she would most cer- 
 tainly refuse to go out and leave him alone. A little 
 
 1 86
 
 THE CLEW 187 
 
 walk and a breath of fresh air would do Claire a 
 world of good. And as for the lateness of the hour, 
 Claire in that section of the city was as safe as in her 
 own home. "Please do as I ask you, Claire," he in- 
 sisted. 
 
 "Very well, father," she agreed after a moment's 
 hesitation, and went and put on her hat. 
 
 From downstairs, as she opened the front door, 
 she called up to him a little anxiously : 
 
 "You are sure you are all right?" 
 
 "Quite sure, dear," Paul Veniza called back. "Don't 
 hurry." 
 
 Claire stepped out on the street. It was not far 
 to go just around the first corner and halfway down 
 the next block and at first she walked briskly, im- 
 pelled by an anxiety to get back to the house again as 
 soon as possible, but insensibly, little by little, her 
 footsteps dragged. 
 
 What was it? Something in the night, the darkness, 
 that promised a kindly cloak against the breaking of 
 her self-restraint, that bade her let go of herself and 
 welcome the tears that welled so spontaneously to her 
 eyes? Would it bring relief? To-day, all evening, 
 more than ever before, she had felt her endurance al- 
 most at an end. She turned her face upward to the 
 night. It was black; not a star showed anywhere. It 
 seemed as though something dense and forbidding had 
 been drawn like a somber mantle over the world. God, 
 even, seemed far away to-night. 
 
 She shivered a little. Could that really be true 
 that God was turning His face away from her? She 
 had tried so hard to cling to her faith. It was all 
 she had; it was all that of late had stood between her
 
 1 88 PAWNED 
 
 and a despair and misery, a horror so overwhelming 
 that death by contrast seemed a boon. 
 
 Her lips quivered as she walked along. It almost 
 seemed as though she did not want to fight any more. 
 And yet there had been a great and very wonderful 
 reward given to her before she had even made the 
 final sacrifice that she had pledged herself to make. 
 If her soul revolted from the association that must 
 come with Doctor Crang, if every instinct within her 
 rose up in stark horror before the contamination of 
 the man's wanton moral filth, one strange and won- 
 drous thing sustained her. And she had no right to 
 mistrust God, for God must have brought her this. 
 She had bought an unknown life that had become 
 dearer to her than her own, or anything that might 
 happen to her. She knew love. It was no longer a 
 stranger who would live on through the years because 
 she was soon to pay the price that had been set upon 
 his life it was John Bruce. 
 
 Claire caught her hands suddenly to her breast. 
 John Bruce! She was still afraid for John Bruce. 
 And to-night, all evening, that fear had been growing 
 stronger, chilling her with a sense of evil premonition 
 and foreboding. Was it only premonition? Crang 
 had threatened. She had heard the threats. And 
 she knew out of her own terrible experience that 
 Crang, as between human life and his own desires, 
 held human life as naught. And yet, surely John 
 Bruce was safe from him now at least his life was 
 safe. That was how Crang had wrung the promise 
 from her. No, she was not so sure 1 There was per- 
 sonal enmity between them now. Besides, if anything 
 happened she would not be able to bring it to Crang's
 
 THE CLEW 189 
 
 door Crang would take care of that and her 
 promise would still hold. And so she was afraid. 
 
 She had not seen Crang since the night that John 
 Bruce had thrown him down the stairs. She had 
 thanked God for the relief his absence had brought 
 her but now, here again, she was not so sure ! What 
 had kept him away? Where was John Bruce? She 
 began to regret that she had told John Bruce he must 
 not attempt to see her or communicate with her any 
 more, though she had only done so because she had 
 been afraid for his sake that it would but arouse the 
 very worst in Doctor Crang. Perhaps John Bruce had 
 yielded to her pleading and had left the city. She 
 shook her head. If she knew the man she loved at 
 all, John Bruce would run from no one, and 
 
 Claire halted abruptly. She had reached the dingy 
 rooming house where Hawkins lived. She brushed 
 her hand resolutely across her eyes as she mounted the 
 steps. The tears had come after all, for her lashes 
 were wet. 
 
 It was not necessary either to ring or knock; the 
 door was always unfastened; and, besides, she had been 
 here so many, many times that she knew the house al- 
 most as well as her own home. She opened the door, 
 stepped into a black hallway, and began to feel her 
 way up the creaking staircase. There was the possi- 
 bility, of course, that Hawkins was either out or al- 
 ready in bed ; but if he were out she would leave a note 
 in his room for him so that he would come over to the 
 old pawn-shop when he returned, and if he were al- 
 ready in bed her message delivered through the door 
 would soon bring Hawkins out of it again Hawkins, 
 since he had been driving that old car which he had
 
 I 9 o PAWNED 
 
 created, was well accustomed to calls at all hours of 
 the night. 
 
 A thin, irregular streak of light, the only sign of 
 light she had seen anywhere in the house, showed now 
 at the threshold under Hawkins' ill-fitting door, as she 
 reached the landing. She stepped quickly to the door 
 and knocked. There was no answer. She knocked 
 again. There was still no answer. Claire smiled a 
 little whimsically. Hawkins was growing extravagant 
 he had gone out and left the light burning. She 
 tried the door, and, finding it unlocked-, opened it, 
 stepped forward into the room and with a sudden, 
 low, half-hurt, half-frightened cry, stood still. Haw- 
 kins was neither out, nor was he in bed. Hawkins 
 was sprawled partly on the floor and partly across 
 a chair in which he had obviously been unable to pre- 
 serve his balance. Several bottles, all empty but one, 
 stood upon the table. There were two dirty glasses 
 beside the bottles, and another one, broken, on the 
 floor. Hawkins was snoring stertorously. 
 
 It seemed somehow to Claire standing there that 
 this was the last straw and yet, too, there was only a 
 world of pity in her heart for the old man. All the 
 years rolled before her. She remembered as a child 
 climbing upon his knee and pleading for the tick-tick 
 tha*t great cumbersome silver watch, which, fallen out 
 of his pocket now, dangled by its chain and swung in 
 jeiky rhythm to his breathing. She remembered the 
 days when, a little older, she had dressed herself in her 
 best clothes, and to Hawkins' huge delight had played 
 at princess, while he drove her about in his old ram- 
 shackle hansom cab; and, later still, his gentle faithful- 
 ness to Paul Veniza in his trouble, and to her and the
 
 THE CLEW 191 
 
 love, and a strange, always welcome, tenderness that 
 he had ever shown her. Poor frail soul! Hawkins 
 had been good to every one but Hawkins! 
 
 She could not leave him like this, but she was not 
 strong enough alone to carry him to his bed. She 
 turned and ran hurriedly downstairs. There was the 
 widow Hedges, of course, the old landlady. 
 
 Back at the end of the' lower hall, Claire pounded 
 upon a door. Presently a woman's voice answered her. 
 A moment later a light appeared as the door was 
 opened, an'd with k an apparition in an old gingham 
 wrapper and curl papers. 
 
 "Oh, it's you, Miss Claire!" the woman exclaimed 
 in surprise. "What's brought you over here to-night, 
 dear? Is your father worse?" 
 
 "No," Claire answered. "He wanted Hawkins, 
 and " 
 
 Mrs. Hedges shook her head. 
 
 "Hawkins ain't in," she said; "but I'll see that he 
 gets the message when he comes back. He went out 
 with the car quite a little while ago with some men he 
 had with him." 
 
 "With the car?" Claire found herself suddenly a 
 little frightened, she did not quite know why. "Well, 
 he's back now, Mrs. Hedges." 
 
 "Oh, no," asserted Mrs. Hedges positively. "I 
 might not have heard him going upstairs, but I would 
 have heard the car coming in. It ain't come back 
 yet." 
 
 "But Hawkins is upstairs," said Claire a little 
 heavily. "I I've been up." 
 
 "You say Hawkins is upstairs?" Mrs. Hedges 
 stared incredulously. "That's very strange!" She
 
 I 9 2 PAWNED 
 
 turned and ran back into her room and to a rear win- 
 dow. "Look, Miss Claire! Come here! You can 
 see!" And as Claire joined her: "The door of the 
 shed, or the gradge as he calls it, is open, and you can 
 see for yourself it's empty. If he's upstairs what 
 could he have done with the car? It ain't out in front 
 of the house, is it, and oh !" She caught Claire's arm 
 anxiously. "There's been an accident, you mean, and 
 he's " 
 
 "I am sure he never left the house," said Claire, 
 and her voice in its composed finality sounded strange 
 even in her own ears. She was thoroughly frightened 
 now, and her fears were beginning to take concrete 
 form. There were not many who would have any use 
 for that queer old car that was so intimately associated 
 with Hawkins! She could think of only one and of 
 only one reason. She pulled at Mrs. Hedges' arm. 
 "Come upstairs," she said. 
 
 Mrs. Hedges reached the door of Hawkins' room 
 first. 
 
 "Oh, my God!" Mrs. Hedges cried out wildly. "He 
 ain't dead, is he?" 
 
 "No," said Claire in a strained voice. "He's he's 
 only had too much to drink. Help me lift him on the 
 bed." 
 
 It taxed the strength of the two women. 
 
 "And the car's stole!" gasped Mrs. Hedges, fight- 
 ing for her breath. 
 
 "Yes," said Claire; "I am afraid so." 
 
 "Then we'll get the police at once !" announced Mrs. 
 Hedges. 
 
 Claire looked at her for a moment.
 
 THE CLEW 193 
 
 "No," she said slowly, shaking her head. "You 
 mustn't do that. It it will come back." 
 
 "Comeback?" Mrs. Hedges stared helplessly. "It 
 ain't a cat! You you ain't quite yourself, are you, 
 Miss Claire? Poor dear, this has upset you. It ain't 
 a fit thing for young eyes like yours to see. Me I'm 
 used to it." 
 
 "I am quite myself." Claire forced a calmness she 
 was far from feeling into her voice. "You mustn't 
 notify the police, or do a thing, except just look after 
 Hawkins. It it's father's car, you know; and he'll 
 know best what to do." 
 
 "Well, maybe that's so," admitted Mrs. Hedges. 
 
 "Do you know who the men were who were here 
 with Hawkins?" Claire asked. 
 
 "No, I don't," Mrs. Hedges answered excitedly. 
 "The thieving devils, coming here and getting Hawkins 
 off like this ! I just knew there were some men up in 
 his room with him because I heard them talking during 
 the evening, and then when I heard them go out and 
 get the car I thought, of course, that Hawkins had 
 gone with them." 
 
 "I I see," said Claire, striving to speak naturally. 
 "I I'll go back to father now. I can't leave him alone 
 very long, anyhow. I'll tell him what has happened, 
 and and he'll decide what to do. You'll look after 
 Hawkins, won't you, Mrs. Hedges?" 
 
 "You run along, dear," said Mrs. Hedges reassur- 
 ingly. "Who else but me has looked after him these 
 ten years?" 
 
 Claire ran from the room and down the stairs, and 1 
 out to the street. The one thing left for her to do 
 was to reach home and get to the telephone get the
 
 i 94 PAWNED 
 
 Bayne-Miloy Hotel and John Bruce. Perhaps she 
 was already too late. She ran almost blindly along 
 the street. Her intuition, the foreboding that had ob- 
 sessed her so heavily all evening, was only too likely 
 now to prove itself far from groundless. What object, 
 save one, could anybody have in obtaining possession 
 of the traveling pawn-shop, Ind at the same time of 
 keeping Hawkins temporarily out of the road? Per- 
 haps her deduction would show flaws if it were sub- 
 jected to the test of pure logic, perhaps there were a 
 thousand other reasons that would account equally 
 well, and even more logically, for what had happened, 
 but she knew it was Crang and Crang could have but 
 one object in view. The man was clever, diabolically 
 clever. In some way he was using that car and Haw- 
 kins' helplessness to trap the man he had threatened. 
 She must warn John Bruce. There was not an instant 
 to lose ! To lose ! How long ago had that car been 
 taken? Was there even a chance left that it was not 
 already far too late ? She had not thought to ask how 
 long ago it was when Mrs. Hedges had heard the car 
 leave the garage. 
 
 It had never seemed so far just that little half 
 block and halfway along another. It seemed as though 
 she had been an hour in coming that little way when 
 she finally reached her home. Her breath coming in 
 hard, short gasps, she opened the door, closed it, and, 
 with no thought but one in her mind, ran across the 
 room to the telephone. She remembered the number 
 of the Bayne-Miloy. She snatched the telephone re- 
 ceiver from the hook and then, as though her arm 
 had suddenly become incapable of further movement, 
 the receiver remained poised halfway to her ear.
 
 THE CLEW 195 
 
 Doctor Crang was leaning over the banister, and 
 looking down at her. 
 
 With a stifled little cry, Claire replaced the receiver. 
 
 Paul Veniza's voice reached her from above. 
 
 "Is that you, Claire?" he called. 
 
 "Yes, father," she answered. 
 
 Doctor Crang came down the stairs. 
 
 "I just dropped in a minute ago not professionally" 
 a snarl crept into his voice "for I have never been 
 informed that your father was ilL" 
 
 Claire did not look up. 
 
 "It it wasn't serious," she said. 
 
 "So!" Crang smiled a little wickedly. "I wonder 
 where you get the gambling spirit from? One of these 
 days you'll find out how serious these attacks are!" 
 He took a step forward. "Your father tells me you 
 have been over to Hawkins' room." 
 
 There was a curious hint of both challenge and per- 
 verted humor in his voice. It set at rest any lingering 
 doubt Claire might have had. 
 
 "Yes," she said, and faced him now, her eyes, hard 
 and steady, fixed on his. 
 
 "Poor Hawkins!" sighed Doctor Crang ironically. 
 "Even the best of us have our vices! It should teach 
 us to be tolerant with others!" 
 
 Claire's little form was rigidly erect. 
 
 "I wonder if you know how much I hate you?" she 
 said in a tense, low voice. 
 
 "You've told me often enough!" A savage, hungry 
 look came into Crang's eyes. "But you're mine, for all 
 that! Mine, Claire! Mine! You understand that, 
 eh?" 
 
 He advanced toward her. The door of the inner
 
 i 9 6 PAWNED 
 
 room, that for weeks, until a few days ago, had been 
 occupied by John Bruce, was just behind her, and she 
 retreated through it. He followed her. She did not 
 want to cry out the sound would reach the sick room 
 above; and, besides, she dared not show the man that 
 she had any fear. 
 
 "Don't follow me like that!" she breathed fiercely. 
 
 "Why not?" he retorted, as he switched on the light 
 and closed the door. "I've got the right to, even if 
 I hadn't something that I came over here particularly 
 to-night to tell you about quite privately." 
 
 She had put the table between them. That he made 
 no effort to come nearer for the moment afforded her 
 a certain relief, but there was something in the smile 
 with which he surveyed her now, a cynical, gloating 
 triumph, that chilled her. 
 
 "Well, what is it?" she demanded. 
 
 "I trapped that damned lover of yours to-night!" 
 he announced coolly. 
 
 Claire felt her face go white. It was true, then! 
 She fought madly with herself for self-possession. 
 
 "If you mean Mr. Bruce," she said deliberately, "I 
 was just going to try to warn him over the phone; 
 though, even then, I was afraid I was too late." 
 
 "Ah!" he exclaimed sharply. "You knew, then?" 
 
 Claire shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 "Oh, yes!" she said contemptuously. "My faith in 
 you where evil is concerned is limitless. I heard your 
 threats. I saw Hawkins a few minutes ago. He was 
 quite quite helpless. You, or some of your confed- 
 erates, traded on his weakness, took the key of the car 
 away from him, and then stole the car. Ordinary 
 thieves would not have acted like that." An icy smile
 
 THE CLEW 197 
 
 came to her lips. "His landlady thought the police 
 should be notified that the car had been stolen." 
 
 "You always were clever, Claire," Crang grinned 
 admiringly. "You've got some brains all there are 
 around here, as far as I can make out. You've got it 
 straight, all right. Mr. John Bruce, Esquire, came out 
 of Lavergne's on being informed that Hawkins was in 
 bad shape no lie about that! and walked into the 
 car without a murmur. Too bad to bother the police, 
 though the car will have been left in front of Haw- 
 kins' door again by now." 
 
 It was hard to keep her courage ; hard to keep her 
 lips from trembling; hard to keep the tears back; hard 
 to pretend that she was not afraid. 
 
 "What are you going to do with him?" Her voice 
 was very low. "The promise that I gave you was on 
 the condition that he lived not only then, but now." 
 
 Crang laughed outright. 
 
 "Oh, don't worry about that! He'd never let it get 
 that far. He thinks too much of Mr. Bruce ! He has 
 already taken care of himself at another man's ex- 
 pense." 
 
 Claire stared numbly. She did not understand. 
 
 "I'll tell you," said Crang, with brutal viciousness. 
 "He's a professional gambler, this supposedly wealthy 
 gentleman of leisure. He works for a man in San 
 Francisco named Larmon, who really is wealthy, but 
 who poses as a pillar of the church, or words to that 
 effect. Never mind how, but Larmon will be here 
 to-night in New York just at the right moment. And 
 Mr. Bruce has very kindly consented to assist in con- 
 vincing Mr. Larmon that exposure isn't worth the few 
 dollars that would buy him immunity."
 
 198 PAWNED 
 
 Claire did not speak. Still she did not understand. 
 She sat down wearily in the chair beside the table. 
 
 Crang took a letter from his pocket abruptly, and, 
 opening it, laid it in front of Claire. 
 
 "I thought perhaps you would like to read it," he 
 said carelessly. 
 
 Claire rested her elbows on the table and cupped 
 her chin in her hands. She stared at the letter. At 
 first the words ran together, and she could not make 
 them out. Then a sentence took form, and then an- 
 other and she read them piteously. "... I asked 
 a girl to marry me, and in doing so felt she had the 
 right to my full confidence. She did me in. ..." She 
 read on to the end. 
 
 "But it's not true I" she cried out sharply. "I don't 
 believe it!" 
 
 "Of course, it isn't true!" said Crang complacently. 
 "And, of course, you don't believe it! But Larmon 
 will. I've only shown you the letter to let you see what 
 kind of a yellow cur this would-be lover of yours is. 
 Anything to save himself! But so long as he wrote 
 the letter, I had no quarrel with him if he wanted to 
 fake excuses for himself that gave him a chance of 
 holding his job with Larmon afterwards." 
 
 It couldn't be true true that John Bruce had even 
 written the letter, a miserable Judas thing that baited 
 a trap, for one who trusted him, with the good name 
 of a woman for whom he had professed to care. It 
 couldn't be true but the signature was there, and 
 and it was genuine: "John Bruce. . . . John Bruce 
 .... John Bruce." It seemed to strike at her with 
 the cruel, stinging blows of a whip-lash : "John Bruce 
 .... John Bruce. . . . John "
 
 THE CLEW 199 
 
 The words became blurred. It was the infinite hope- 
 lessness of everything that crushed her fortitude, and 
 mocked it, and made of it at last a beaten thing. A 
 tear fell and splashed upon the page and still an- 
 other. She kept looking at the letter, though she could 
 only see it through a blinding mist. And there was 
 something ominous, and something that added to her 
 fear, that she should imagine that her tears made 
 black splashes on the blurred letter as they fell, 
 and 
 
 She heard a sudden startled snarl from Crang, and 
 the letter was snatched up from the table. And then 
 he seemed to laugh wildly, without reason, as a maniac 
 would laugh and with the letter clutched in his hand 
 rushed from the room. Claire crushed her hands 
 against her temples. Perhaps it was herself who had 
 gone mad. 
 
 The front door banged.
 
 XVI 
 
 A WOLF LICKS HIS CHOPS 
 
 OUTSIDE the house Crang continued to run. He 
 was unconscious that he had forgotten his hat. 
 His face worked in livid fury. Alternately he 
 burst out into short, ugly gusts of laughter that made 
 of laughter an evil thing; alternately, racked with un- 
 bridled passion, he mouthed a flood of oaths. 
 
 He ran on for some three blocks, and finally dashed 
 up the steps of a small, drab-looking, cheap frame 
 house. A brass sign, greenish with mold from neglect, 
 flanked one side of the door. Under the street light 
 it could just barely be deciphered: 
 
 SYDNEY ANGUS CRANG, M.D., 
 
 He tried the door. It was locked. He searched 
 impatiently and hastily in his pockets for his pass-key, 
 and failing to find it instantly he rang the bell; and 
 then, without waiting for an answer to the summons, 
 he immediately began to bang furiously upon the 
 panels. 
 
 An old woman, his housekeeper, whose bare feet 
 had obviously been thrust hurriedly into slippers, and 
 who clutched at the neck of a woolen dressing gown 
 that also obviously, and with equal haste, had been 
 flung around her shoulders over her nightdress, finally 
 opened the door. 
 
 300
 
 A WOLF LICKS HIS CHOPS 201 
 
 "Get out of the roadl" Crang snarled and brushed 
 his way roughly past her. 
 
 He stepped forward along an unlighted hall, opened 
 a door, and slammed it behind him. He switched on 
 the light. He was in his consulting room. The next 
 instant he was standing beside his desk, and had 
 wrenched John Bruce's letter from his pocket. He 
 spread this out on the desk and glared at it. Beyond 
 any doubt whatever, where Claire's tears had fallen 
 on the paper, traces of writing were faintly discern- 
 ible. Here, out of an abortive word, was a well- 
 formed "e"; and there, unmistakably, was a capital 
 "L." 
 
 Crang burst into a torrent of abuse and oaths; his 
 fists clenched, and he shook one of them in the air. 
 
 "Double-crossed eh? damn him I" he choked. 
 "He tried to double-cross me did he?" 
 
 Carrying the letter, he ran now into a little room 
 behind his office, where he compounded his medicines, 
 and that was fitted up as a sort of small laboratory. 
 
 "I'm a clever man," Crang mumbled to himself. 
 "We'll see about this!" 
 
 With sudden complacence he began to study the 
 sheet of paper. He nodded curtly to himself as he 
 noted that the traces of the secret writing were all on 
 the lower edge of the paper. 
 
 "We'll be very careful, very careful" Doctor 
 Crang was still mumbling "it may be useful in more 
 ways than one." 
 
 He turned on the water faucet, wet a camel's-hair 
 brush, and applied the brush to the lower edge of the 
 letter. The experiment was productive of no result. 
 He stared at the paper for a while with wrinkled
 
 202 PAWNED 
 
 brow, and then suddenly he began to laugh ironically. 
 
 "No, of course, notl" He was jeering at himself 
 now. "Clever? You are not clever, you are a fool I 
 She cried on the paper. Tears! Tears possess a 
 slight trace of" he reached quickly for a glass con- 
 tainer, and began to prepare a solution of some sort 
 "a very slight trace . . . that's why the characters 
 that already show are so faint. Now we'll see, Mr. 
 John Bruce, what you've got to say. . . . Salt! . . . 
 A little salt, eh?" 
 
 He dipped the camel's-hair brush in the solution and 
 drew it across the bottom edge of the paper again. 
 
 "Ha, ha!" exclaimed Doctor Crang in eager excite- 
 ment. Letters, words and sentences began to take 
 form under the brush. "Ha, ha ! He'd play that game 
 with me, would he? Damn him!" 
 
 Very carefully Sydney Angus Crang, M.D., worked 
 his brush upward on the paper line by line, until, still 
 well below the signature that John Bruce had affixed 
 in his, Crang's, presence, there failed to appear any 
 further trace of the secret writing. He read as fast 
 as a word appeared like a starving beast snatching in 
 ferocious greed at morsels of food. It made whole 
 and complete sense. His eyes feasted on it now in 
 its entirety: 
 
 Keep away. This is a trap. Stall till you can turn tables. 
 Information obtained while I was delirious. Am a prisoner in 
 hands of a gang whose leader is a doctor named Crang. 
 Veniza will tell you where Crang lives. Get Veniza's address 
 from Lavergne at the house. The only way to save either of 
 us is to trick Crang. Look out for yourself. Bruce.
 
 203 
 
 He tossed the camel's-hair brush away, returned to 
 his desk, spread the letter out on a blotter to allow 
 the lower edge to dry, and slumping down in his desk 
 chair, glued his eyes on the secret message, reading it 
 over and over again. 
 
 "Trick Crang eh? ha, ha!" He began to 
 chuckle low; then suddenly his fingers, crooked and 
 curved until they looked like claws, reached out as 
 though to fasten upon some prey at hand. And then 
 he chuckled once more and then grew somber, and 
 slumped deeper in his chair, and his eyes, brooding, 
 were half closed. "Not to-night," he muttered. "One 
 job of it to-morrow . * . squeal like a pair of rats 
 that " 
 
 He sat suddenly bolt upright in his chair. It came 
 again a low tapping on the window; two raps, three 
 times repeated. He rose quickly, crossed the room, 
 opened the door, and stood motionless for a moment 
 peering out into the hall. It was a purely precaution- 
 ary measure he had little doubt but that his old 
 housekeeper had long since mounted the stairs and 
 returned to her bed. He stepped rapidly then along 
 the hall, and opened the front door. 
 
 "That you, Birdie?" he called in a low voice. 
 
 A man's form appeared from the shadow of the 
 stoop. 
 
 "Sure!" the man answered. 
 
 "Come in!" Doctor Crang said tersely. 
 
 He led the way back into the consulting room, and 
 slumped down again in his chair. 
 
 "Well?" he demanded. 
 
 "Peters arrived all right," Birdie reported. "He
 
 204 PAWNED 
 
 registered at the Bayne-Miloy Hotel, and he's there 
 
 now." 
 
 "Good!" grunted Crang. 
 
 For a full five minutes he remained silent and with- 
 out movement in his chair, apparently utterly oblivi- 
 ous of the other, who stood, shifting a little awkwardly 
 from foot to foot, on the opposite side of the desk. 
 
 Then Crang spoke more to himself than to Birdie. 
 
 "He'll be anxious, of course, and growing more so," 
 he said. "He might make a break of some kind. I'll 
 have to fix that. I'm not ready yet. What?" 
 
 Birdie, from staring inanely at the wall, came to 
 himself with a sudden start at what he evidently inter- 
 preted as a direct question. 
 
 "Yes sure !" he said hurriedly. "No I mean, no, 
 you're not ready." 
 
 Crang glared at the man contemptuously. 
 
 "What the hell do you know about it?" he inquired 
 caustically. 
 
 He picked up the telephone directory, studied it for 
 a moment, then, reaching for the desk telephone, asked 
 for his connection. Presently the Bayne-Miloy Hotel 
 answered him, and he asked for Mr. R. L. Peters' 
 room. A moment more and a voice reached him over 
 the phone. 
 
 "Is that Mr. Peters?" Crang inquired quietly. "Mr. 
 R. L. Peters, of San Francisco? . . . Yes? Then I 
 have a message for you, Mr. Peters, from the person 
 who sent you a telegram a few days ago ... I beg 
 your pardon? . . . Yes, I am sure you do ... My- 
 self? I'd rather not mention any names over the 
 phone. You understand, don't you? He told me to 
 tell you that it is absolutely necessary that no connec-
 
 A WOLF LICKS HIS CHOPS 205 
 
 tion is known to exist between you, and for that 
 reason he does not dare take the chance of getting into 
 touch with you to-night, but he will manage it somehow 
 by early afternoon to-morrow . . . What say? . . , 
 Yes, it is very serious, otherwise he would hardly have 
 telegraphed you to come on from San Francisco . . . 
 No, personally, I don't know. That was his message ; 
 but I was also to warn you on no account to leave your 
 rooms, or have communication with anybody until you 
 hear direct from him. . . . No, I do not know the 
 particulars. I only know that he is apparently in a 
 hole, and a bad one, and that he is now afraid that you 
 will get into it too. . . . Yes. You are sure you fully 
 understand? . . . No, not at all! I am only too glad. 
 . . . Good-night." 
 
 Crang, with a curious smile on his lips, hung up the 
 receiver. He turned abruptly to Birdie. 
 
 "You get a taxi to-morrow," he said brusquely. 
 "We'll want it for two or three hours. Slip the chauf- 
 feur whatever is necessary, and change places with 
 him. See? You'll know where to find one that will 
 fall for that. Then you come here for me at let's 
 see the boat sails at four you come here at half 
 past one sharp. Get me?" 
 
 "Sure!" said Birdie, with a grin. "That's a cinch I" 
 
 "All right, then 1" Crang waved his hand. "Beat 
 it!" 
 
 Birdie left the room. A moment later the front 
 door closed behind him. 
 
 Crang picked up the letter and examined it criti- 
 cally. The lower three or four inches of the paper was 
 slightly crinkled, but quite dry now; the body of the
 
 206 PAWNED 
 
 original letter showed no sign whatever of his work 
 upon the lower portion. 
 
 Doctor Crang nodded contentedly. 
 
 He rose abruptly, secured his surgical bag, and from 
 it selected a lance. With the aid of a ruler and the 
 keen-bladed little instrument, he very carefully cut 
 away the lower section of the paper. The slip con- 
 taining the erstwhile secret message he tucked away in 
 his inside pocket; then he examined the letter itself 
 again even more critically than before. For all evi- 
 dence that it presented to the contrary, it might have 
 been the original size of the sheet. There was even 
 a generous margin of paper still left beneath John 
 Bruce's signature. He folded the letter, replaced it 
 in its envelope and now sealed the envelope. 
 
 "To-morrow!" said Doctor Sydney Angus Crang 
 with a sinister smile, as he produced a hypodermic 
 syringe from his pocket and rolled up the sleeve of his 
 left arm. He laughed as the needle pricked his flesh. 
 "To-morrow John Bruce!" 
 
 He slumped far down in his chair once more. For 
 half an hour he sat motionless, his eyes closed. Then 
 he spoke again. 
 
 "Damn you!" he said.
 
 XVII 
 
 ALIAS MR. ANDERSON 
 
 DOCTOR Sydney Angus Crang looked at 
 his watch, as he stepped from a taxi the 
 next afternoon, and entered the Bayne-Miloy 
 Hotel. It was fifteen minutes of two. He approached 
 the desk and obtained a blank card. "From J. B M " he 
 wrote upon it. He handed it to the clerk. 
 
 "Please send this up to Mr. R. L. Peters," he re- 
 quested. 
 
 He leaned nonchalantly against the desk as a bell- 
 boy departed with the card. From where he stood the 
 front windows gave him a view of the street, and he 
 could see Birdie parking the taxi a little way up past 
 the entrance. He smiled pleasantly as he waited. 
 
 Presently the bell-boy returned with the information 
 that Mr. Peters would see him ; and, following the boy 
 upstairs, he was ushered into the sitting room of one 
 of the Bayne-Miloy's luxurious suites. A tall man with 
 a thin, swarthy face confronted him. Between his 
 fingers the tall man held the card that he, Crang, had 
 sent up; and between his lips the tall man sucked 
 assiduously at a quill toothpick. 
 
 "Mr. Peters, of course?" Crang inquired easily, as 
 the door closed behind the bell-hoy. 
 
 Mr. Peters, alias Gilbert Larmon, nodded quietly. 
 
 "I was rather expecting Mr. Bruce in person," he 
 said. 
 
 207
 
 208 PAWNED 
 
 Crang looked cautiously around him. 
 
 "It still isn't safe," he said in a lowered voice. "At 
 least, not here; so I am, going to take you to him. 
 But perhaps you would prefer that I should explain 
 my own connection with this affair first?" 
 
 Again Larmon nodded. 
 
 "Perhaps it would be just as well," he said. 
 
 Once more Crang looked cautiously around him. 
 
 "We we are quite alone, I take it?" 
 
 "Quite," said Larmon. 
 
 "My name is Anderson, William Anderson," Crang 
 stated smoothly. "I was the one who telephoned you 
 last night. I am a friend of John Bruce the only one 
 he's got, I guess, except yourself. Bruce and I used 
 to be boys together in San Francisco. I hadn't seen 
 him for years until we ran into each other here in New 
 York a few weeks ago and chummed up again. As I 
 told you over the phone, I don't know the ins and outs 
 of this, but I know he is in some trouble with a gang 
 that he got mixed up with in the underworld some- 
 how." 
 
 "Tckf" The quill toothpick flexed sharply against 
 one of the tall man's front teeth. "William Ander- 
 son" he repeated the name musingly "yes, I remem- 
 ber. I sent a telegram in your care to Mr. Bruce a 
 few days ago." 
 
 "Yes," said Crang. 
 
 The quill toothpick appeared to occupy the tall 
 man's full attention for a period of many seconds. 
 
 "Are you conversant with the contents of that tele- 
 gram, Mr. Anderson?" he asked casually at last. 
 
 Crang suppressed a crafty smile. Mr Gilbert 
 Larmon was no fool ! Mr. Gilbert Larmon stood here
 
 ALIAS MR. ANDERSON 209 
 
 as Mr. R. L. Peters the telegram had been signed: 
 "Gilbert Larmon." The question that Larmon was 
 actually asking was: How much do you really know? 
 
 "Why, yes," said Crang readily. "I did not actu- 
 ally see the telegram, but Bruce told me it was from 
 a friend of his, a Mr. Peters, who would arrive in 
 New York Wednesday night, and whom he seemed to 
 think he needed pretty badly in his present scrape." 
 
 Larmon took a turn or two up and down the room. 
 He halted again before Crang. 
 
 "I am obliged to admit that I am both anxious and 
 considerably at sea," he said deliberately. "There 
 seems to be an air of mystery surrounding all this that 
 I neither like nor understand. You did not allay my 
 fears last night when you telephoned me. Have you 
 no more to tell me?" 
 
 Crang shook his head slowly. 
 
 "No," he said. "You've got everything I know. 
 Bruce has been like a clam as far as the nature of what 
 is between himself and this gang is concerned. He 
 will have to tell you himself if he will. He won't 
 tell me. Meanwhile, he sent you this." 
 
 Crang reached into his pocket and took out the 
 envelope addressed to Mr. R. L. Peters, that he had 
 taken pains to seal the night before. 
 
 Larmon took the envelope, stepped over to the win- 
 dow, presumably for better light, and opening the let- 
 ter, began to read it. 
 
 Crang watched the other furtively. The quill tooth- 
 pick, from a series of violent gyrations, became mo- 
 tionless between Larmon's lips. The thin face seemed 
 to mold itself into sharp, dogged lines. Again and 
 again Larmon appeared to read the letter over; and
 
 210 PAWNED 
 
 then the hand that held the sheet of paper dropped to 
 his side, and he stood for a long time staring out of 
 the window. Finally he turned slowly and came back 
 across the room. 
 
 "This is bad, Mr. Anderson far worse than I had 
 imagined," he said in a hard voice. "I believe you 
 said you would take me to Bruce. This letter asks me 
 to accompany you, and I see we are to go at once." 
 He motioned toward a box of cigars on the table. 
 "Help yourself to a cigar, Mr. Anderson, and take a 
 chair while I change and get ready. I will only be a 
 few minutes, if you will excuse me for that length of 
 time?" 
 
 Crang's face expressed concern. 
 
 "Why, certainly, Mr. Peters," he agreed readily. 
 He helped himself to a cigar, and sat down in a chair. 
 "I'm sorry if it's as bad as that." 
 
 Larmon made no answer, save to nod his head 
 gravely as he stepped quickly toward the door of the 
 apartment's adjoining room. 
 
 Crang struck a match and lighted his cigar. The 
 door of the connecting room closed behind Larmon. 
 A cloud of blue smoke veiled Crang's face and a leer 
 that lighted his suddenly narrowed eyes. 
 
 "So that's it, is it?" grinned Crang to himself. "I 
 wondered how he was going to work it ! Well, I guess 
 he would have got away with it, too if I hadn't got 
 away with it first I" 
 
 He sat motionless in his chair and listened. And 
 suddenly he smiled maliciously. The sound of run- 
 ning water from a tap turned on somewhere on the 
 other side of the connecting door reached him faintly. 
 
 "And now a little salt!" murmured Doctor Sydney
 
 ALIAS MR. ANDERSON 211 
 
 Angus Crang. He blew a smoke ring into the air and 
 watched it dissolve. "And, presto! like the smoke 
 ring nothing!" 
 
 The minutes passed, perhaps five of them, and then 
 the door opened again and Larmon reappeared. 
 
 "I'm ready now," he announced quietly. "Shall 
 we go?" 
 
 Crang rose from his chair. 
 
 "Yes," he said. He glanced at Larmon, as he 
 tapped the ash from the end of his cigar. Larmon 
 had not forgotten to change his clothes. "I've got a 
 taxi waiting." 
 
 "All right," agreed Larmon briskly and led the 
 way to the elevator. 
 
 Out on the street, Crang led the way in turn to 
 the taxi. Birdie reached out from his seat, and flung 
 the door open. Crang motioned Larmon to enter, and 
 then leaned toward Birdie as though to give the man 
 the necessary address. He spoke in a low, quiet tone : 
 
 "Keep to the decent streets as long as you can, so 
 that he won't have a chance to get leery until it won't 
 matter whether he does or not. Understand?" 
 
 Birdie touched his cap. 
 
 "Yes, sir," he said. 
 
 The taxi jerked forward. 
 
 "It's not very far," said Crang. He smiled 
 engagingly as he settled back in his seat and his hand 
 in his coat pocket sought and fondled his revolver. 
 
 Larmon, apparently immersed in his own thoughts, 
 made no immediate reply. The taxi traversed a dozen 
 blocks, during which time Crang, quite contented to let 
 well enough alone, made no effort at conversation. 
 Larmon chewed at his quill toothpick until, following
 
 212 PAWNED 
 
 a savage little click, he removed it in two pieces from 
 his mouth. He had bitten it in half. He tossed the 
 pieces on the floor, and produced a fresh one from his 
 pocket. 
 
 "My word!" observed Crang dryly. "You've got 
 good teeth." 
 
 Larmon turned and looked at him. 
 
 "Yes, Mr. Anderson, I have !" His voice was level. 
 "And I am going to show them when I get hold of 
 Bruce." 
 
 Crang's expression was instantly one of innocent 
 bewilderment. 
 
 "Why," he said, "I thought you " 
 
 "Have you ever met the lady?" Larmon asked 
 abruptly. 
 
 "The lady?" Crang glanced out of the window. 
 Birdie was making good time, very good time indeed. 
 Another five minutes at the outside and the trick was 
 done. 
 
 "The woman in the case," said Larmon. 
 
 "Oh I" Crang whistled low. "I see! No, I've 
 never met her. I didn't know there was one. I told 
 you he had said nothing to me." 
 
 Larmon was frowning heavily; his face was strained 
 and worried. He laughed out suddenly, jerkily. 
 
 "I suppose I should give him credit for keeping 
 you at least in the dark," he said shortly; "though it 
 strikes me as more or less of a case of locking the 
 stable door after the horse has gone." 
 
 Crang's eyebrows were raised in well-simulated per- 
 plexity. 
 
 "I don't quite get you, Mr. Peters," he said politely. 
 
 "It's of no consequence." Larmon's eyes were sud-
 
 ALIAS MR. ANDERSON 213 
 
 denly fastened on the window. From an already 
 shabby street where cheap tenements hived a polyglot 
 nationality, the taxi had swerved into an intersection 
 that seemed more a lane than anything else, and that 
 was still more shabby and uninviting. "This is a 
 rather sordid neighborhood, isn't it?" he observed 
 curiously. 
 
 "It's safe," said Crang significantly. 
 
 The taxi stopped. 
 
 "We get out here, Mr. Peters," Crang announced 
 pleasantly, as Birdie opened the door. "It's a bit 
 rough, I'll admit; but" he shrugged his shoulders 
 and smiled "you'll have to blame Bruce, not me. 
 Just follow me, Mr. Peters it's down these steps." 
 
 He began to descend the steps of a cellar entrance, 
 which was unprepossessingly black, and which opened 
 from the rear of a seedy looking building that abutted 
 on the lane. He did not look behind him. Larmon 
 had made sure that the letter was to be relied upon, 
 hadn't he? and it was John Bruce, not anybody else, 
 that Larmon was trusting now. Certainly, it was much 
 easier to lead Larmon as long as Larmon could be 
 led; if Larmon hesitated about following, Birdie stood 
 ready to pitch the other headlong down the step^-^the 
 same end would be attained in either case I 
 
 But Larmon still showed no suspicion of the good 
 faith of one William Anderson. He was following 
 without question. The daylight streaking down 
 through the entrance afforded enough light to enable 
 Crang, over his shoulder, to note that Larmon was 
 always close behind him. At a door across the cellar 
 Crang gave two raps, three times repeated, and as the 
 door was opened, entered with Larmon beside him.
 
 214 PAWNED 
 
 The man who had let them in one of three, who 
 had evidently been rolling dice at a table close to the 
 entrance closed the door behind them, and resumed 
 his game. 
 
 "If you'll just wait here a minute, Mr. Peters," 
 Crang said breezily, "I'll find Bruce for you." 
 
 He did not wait for a reply. It mattered very little 
 as to what Larmon said or did now, anyhow 
 Larmon's exit was barred by three men ! He walked 
 up the length of the low-ceiled, evil-smelling place, and 
 with a key which he took from his pocket unlocked a 
 door at the farther end. As he stepped through the 
 door his revolver was in his hand. 
 
 He laughed in an ugly way, as John Bruce rose from 
 the mattress and faced him. 
 
 "Salt is a great thing, isn't it?" he jeered. He drew 
 from his pocket the slip of paper he had cut from the 
 bottom of the letter, and held it so that John Bruce 
 could see it. Then he put it back in his pocket again. 
 "Understand? He got the rest of the letter, all right; 
 and so he has come down to pay you a little visit. He's 
 outside there now." 
 
 John Bruce made no answer. 
 
 Crang laughed again. 
 
 "You thought you'd double-cross me, did you? You 
 poor fool! Well, it's a showdown now. I'm going 
 to bring him in here and let you tell him what he's 
 up against. I guess you can convince him. He's got 
 less than an hour in which to come across if you are 
 going to sail on that steamer. If you don't make your- 
 self useful to that extent, you go out for keeps ; and 
 Larmon stays here until he antes up or rots I Is that 
 quite clear?"
 
 ALIAS MR. ANDERSON 215 
 
 John Bruce's lips scarcely moved. 
 "Yes; it is quite clear," he said. 
 "I thought it would be I 1 ' snarled Crang and 
 backed out through the door.
 
 XVIII 
 
 THE HOSTAGE 
 
 AS Crang disappeared through the doorway, 
 John Bruce stepped noiselessly forward across 
 the earthen floor. With the door half open 
 and swung inward, it left a generous aperture at the 
 hinges through which he could see down the length of 
 the cave-like den outside. 
 
 He was strangely calm. Yes, there was Larmon 
 down there and Crang was walking toward him. 
 And Crang had left the door open here. Well, why 
 not? -with those three apaches at that table yonder! 
 Yes, why not? except that Crang had also left open 
 the way to one last move, left him, John Bruce, one 
 last card to play! 
 
 Strange, the cold, unnatural calmness that possessed 
 him! His mind seemed instantaneously to have con- 
 ceived and created a project that almost subconsciously 
 he was now in the act of putting into effect. He 
 reached out, and extracting the key from the outside of 
 the door, inserted it on the inside of the lock. He 
 smiled grimly. So far, it was quite safe! The door 
 was swung so far inward that the inner edge of it, and 
 therefore his act, certainly could not be seen by any 
 one out there. 
 
 A last card! His lips tightened. Well, perhaps! 
 But it was more than that. His unnatural composure 
 
 216
 
 THE HOSTAGE 217 
 
 had something deeper than that behind it a passion- 
 ate fury smoldering on the verge of flame. Larmon 
 was out there trapped ! He could not put Larmon in 
 greater jeopardy now, no matter what he, John Bruce, 
 did personally, because Larmon dead would not be 
 worth anything to them. But for himself to stand 
 and take it all like a sheep at the hands of a damned, 
 cringing 
 
 He shook his head in quick, curious self-rebuke. 
 Not yet! He needed that cold composure a little 
 longer since it was to be a showdown now. That was 
 what Crang had said a showdown. And Crang was 
 right ! It meant the end one way or the other. But 
 with luck, if Crang was as yellow as he believed the 
 man to be, the idea of the bluff that had leaped into 
 his mind would work successfully; and if it didn't 
 work well, then, there was the end and at least it 
 would not be a scatheless one for Crang 1 
 
 The mind works swiftly. Had Crang had time only 
 to walk down half the length of that room out there 
 toward Larmon? Yes, he saw Crang halt now, and 
 heard Crang call out sharply to the three men at the 
 table : 
 
 "See if he's got a gunl" 
 
 John Bruce, through the crack, saw Larmon whirl 
 around suddenly, as though aware for the first time 
 that he was in danger; saw two of the men grasp 
 Larmon roughly, while the third searched through his 
 clothes. 
 
 And then Crang laughed out raucously: 
 
 "This way, Mr. Peters please I You three can 
 stay where you are I'll call you if I need you!" 
 
 For still another instant John Bruce watched
 
 2i8 PAWNED 
 
 through the crack. Larmon, though his face was set 
 and stern, advanced calmly to where Crang stood. 
 Crang, with a prod of his revolver, pushed him 
 onward. They were coming now Larmon first, and 
 Crang immediately behind the other. Without a 
 sound, John Bruce slipped around to the other side 
 of the door; and, back just far enough so that he would 
 not be seen the instant the threshold was reached, 
 crouched down close against the wall. 
 
 A second passed. 
 
 "Go on in there!" he heard Crang order. 
 
 Larmon's form crossed the threshold; and then 
 Crang's and John Bruce hurled himself forward, 
 striking, even while his hands flew upward to lock 
 like a vise around Crang's throat, a lightning blow at 
 Crang's wrist that sent the revolver to the soft 
 earthen floor without a sound and a low, strangling, 
 gurgling noise was alone the result of Crang's effort 
 at a shout of alarm. 
 
 "Shut the door quietly! And lock it, Larmonl" 
 John Bruce flung out. 
 
 It was an impotent thing. It struck at the air blindly, 
 its fists going like disjointed flails. Strong! He had 
 not just risen from a sick bed this time ! John Bruce 
 and the soul within him seemed to chuckle in unison 
 together at this wriggling thing that he held up by the 
 neck with its feet off the ground. But he saw Larmon, 
 though t'or the fraction of a second held spellbound in 
 amazement, spring and lock the door. 
 
 "If you make a sound that reaches out there" John 
 Bruce was whispering now with panting, labored 
 breath, as he swung Crang over to the corner and 
 forced him down upon the mattress "it will take too
 
 THE HOSTAGE 219 
 
 long to break that door in to be of any use to you ! 
 Understand?" 
 
 "Bruce!" 
 
 It was Larmon standing over them. John Bruce 
 scarcely turned his head. His hands were still on 
 Crang's throat, though the man lay cowed and passive 
 now. 
 
 "His inside coat pocket!" John Bruce jerked out. 
 "It will save a lot of explanation." 
 
 Larmon leaned over and thrust his hand into Crang's 
 pocket. He produced several envelopes and the slip 
 of paper cut from John Bruce's letter. 
 
 "Read the slip!" said John Bruce grimly. "He 
 showed it to me a minute ago when he came in to tell 
 me you were here. It was written in our invisible ink 
 at the bottom of the letter he brought you." He 
 laughed shortly. "When you've read it, I'll introduce 
 you." 
 
 Larmon read the slip hurriedly. 
 
 "Good God!" he cried out. 
 
 "This is Crang," said John Bruce evenly. 
 
 "But" Larmon's face was tense and strained 
 "how " 
 
 "How did he discover there was anything there to 
 begin with, and then hit on the salt solution?" John 
 Bruce interrupted. "I don't know. We'll find out." 
 He relaxed his hold a little on Crang's throat, and 
 taking the slip of paper from Larmon, thrust it into 
 his own pocket. "Go on, Crang! Tell us!" 
 
 Crang's eyes roved from John Bruce to Larmon and 
 back to John Bruce again. His face was ashen. He 
 shook his head. 
 
 "You'll talk!" said John Bruce with ominous quiet.
 
 220 PAWNED 
 
 "And the less urging" his grip began to tighten again 
 "the better for you." 
 
 "Wait!" Crang choked. "Yes I I'll tell you. I 
 showed the letter to Claire. She she cried on it. A 
 tear splash black letter began to appear. I took the 
 letter home, and trace of salt in tears and " 
 
 Crang's voice died away in a strangling cry. Claire ! 
 John Bruce had barely caught any other word but that. 
 Claire! The face beneath him began to grow livid. 
 Claire ! So the devil had brought Claire into this, too. 
 Too! Yes, there was something else. Something 
 else ! He remembered now. There was a reckoning 
 to come that was beyond all other reckonings, wasn't 
 there? He would know now what hold this thing, that 
 was beast, not man, had upon her. He would know 
 now or it would end now ! 
 
 "Claire! D'ye hear?" John Bruce whispered 
 hoarsely. "You know what I mean! What trick of 
 hell did you play to make her promise to marry you? 
 Answer me!" 
 
 The thing on the mattress moaned. 
 
 w Bruce! For God's sake, Bruce, what are you 
 doing?" Larmon cried out sharply. 
 
 John Bruce raised his head and snarled at Larmon. 
 Neither Larmon, nor any other man, would rob him 
 of this now! 
 
 "You stand aside, Larmon !" he rasped out. "This 
 is between me and Crang. Keep out of the way !" 
 
 He shook at Crang again. He laughed. The man's 
 head bobbed limply. 
 
 "Answer me!" He loosened his grip suddenly. 
 Queer, he had forgotten that Crang couldn't speak, 
 of course, if he wouldn't let him!
 
 THE HOSTAGE 221 
 
 The man gasped, and gasped again, for his breath. 
 
 "I give you one second." John Bruce's lips did not 
 move as he spoke. 
 
 Twice Crang tried to speak. 
 
 "Quick!" John Bruce planted his knees on the 
 other's chest. 
 
 "Yes yes, yes, yes!" Crang gurgled out. "It's 
 you the night you you were stabbed. You were 
 were nearly gone. I I gave her the the choice 
 to marry me, or or I'd let you go out." 
 
 John Bruce felt his shoulders surge forward, felt 
 his muscles grow taut as steel, and he shook at some- 
 thing flabby that made no resistance, and his knees' 
 rocked upon something soft where they were bedded. 
 For him Claire had faced that inhuman choice, born 
 in this monster's brain to save his life! Madness 
 seized upon him. The room, everything before him 
 whirled around in great, red, pulsing circles. A fury 
 that shook at the roots of his soul took possession of 
 him. He knew nothing, saw nothing, was moved by 
 nothing save an overwhelming lust for vengeance that 
 seemed to give him superhuman strength, that enabled 
 him to crush between his two bare hands this nauseous 
 thing that 
 
 He heard a voice. It seemed to come from some 
 infinite distance: 
 
 "You are killing the man! In the name of God, 
 John Bruce, come away!" 
 
 It was Larmon's voice. He looked up. He was 
 vaguely conscious that it was Larmon who was pulling 
 at his shoulders, wrenching madly at his hands, but he 
 could not see Larmon only a blurred red figure that 
 danced insanely up and down. Killing the man! Of
 
 222 PAWNED 
 
 course ! What an inane thing to say ! Then he felt 
 his hands suddenly torn away from a hold they had had 
 upon something, and he felt himself pulled to his feet. 
 And then for a little he stood swaying unsteadily, and 
 he shuddered, then he groped his way over to the chair 
 by the table and dropped into it. 
 
 He stared in front of him. Something on the floor 
 near the door glittered and reflected the light from 
 the single, dim incandescent. He lurched up from the 
 chair, and going toward the object, snatched it up. 
 It was Crang's revolver but Larmon was upon him 
 in an instant. 
 
 "Not that way, either!" said Larmon hoarsely. 
 
 John Bruce brushed his hand across his eyes. 
 
 "No, not that way, either," he repeated like a child. 
 
 He went back to the chair and sat down. He was 
 aware that Larmon was kneeling beside the mattress, 
 but he paid no attention to the other. 
 
 "The man's unconscious," Larmon said. 
 
 John Bruce did not turn his head. 
 
 The minutes passed. 
 
 John Brace's brain began to clear; but the unbal- 
 anced fury that had possessed him was giving place 
 now only to one more implacable in its considered 
 phase. He looked around him. Crang, evidently 
 recovered, was sitting up on the mattress. The letters 
 Larmon had taken from Crang's pocket lay on the 
 table. John Bruce picked them up idly. From one of 
 them a steamer ticket fell out. He stared at this for 
 a moment. A passage for John Bruce to South 
 America ! Then low, an ugly sound, his laugh echoed 
 around the place. 
 
 South America! It recalled him to his actual sur-
 
 THE HOSTAGE 223 
 
 roundings that on the other side of the door were 
 Crang's apaches. There was still time to catch the 
 steamer, wasn't there for South America? "If the 
 bluff worked" he remembered his thoughts, the plan 
 that had actuated him when he had crouched there at 
 the door, waiting for Crang to enter. Strange! It 
 wouldn't be a bluff any more ! All that was gone. 
 What he would do now, and carry it through to its 
 end, was what he had intended to bluff Crang into 
 believing he would do. And Crang, too, would under- 
 stand now how little of bluff there was or, misunder- 
 standing, pay for it with his life. 
 
 He thrust the ticket suddenly into his pocket, 
 stepped from his chair, the revolver in his hand, and 
 confronted Crang. The man shrank back, trembling, 
 his face gray with fear. 
 
 "Stand up!" John Bruce commanded. 
 
 Crang, groveling against the wall, got upon his feet. 
 
 It was a full minute before John Bruce spoke again, 
 and then the words came choking hot from his lips. 
 
 "You damned cur !" he cried. "That's what you did, 
 was it? The price Claire paid was for my life. Well, 
 it's hers, then; it's no longer mine. Can you under- 
 stand that, and understand that I am going to pay it 
 back, if necessary, to rid her of you? We are going 
 to walk out of here. You will lead the way. We are 
 going down to that steamer, and you are going on John 
 Bruce's ticket where you proposed to send me to 
 South America. Either that or you are going on a 
 longer journey. I shall carry this revolver in the 
 pocket of my coat, and walk beside you. It is your 
 affair how we pass those men out there. If you make 
 any attempt at trickery in getting out of here, or later
 
 224 PAWNED 
 
 in the street attempt to escape, I will fire instantly. 
 It does not matter in the slightest degree what happens 
 to me at the hands of your men, or at the hands of a 
 thousand people in the most crowded street. You will 
 have gone out first. The only consideration that 
 exists is that Claire shall be free of you." 
 
 "Tckf" It was the quill toothpick flexing against 
 one of Larmon's teeth. 
 
 John Bruce turned. 
 
 "I did not understand," said Larmon in a low, grim 
 way. "If I had, I am not sure I should have stopped 
 you from throttling him when I did." 
 
 John Bruce nodded curtly. He spoke again to 
 Crang. 
 
 "I am not asking you whether you agree to this or 
 not," he said with level emphasis. "You have your 
 choice at any moment to do as you like you know the 
 consequences." He slipped his hand with his revolver 
 into the right-hand side pocket of his coat, and took 
 his place at Crang's left side. "Now, go ahead and 
 open that door, and lead the way out! Mr. Larmon, 
 you follow close behind me." 
 
 "Yes," Crang stammered, "yes for God's sake 
 I I'll do jit I " 
 
 "Open that door!" said John Bruce monotonously. 
 "I didn't ask you to talk about it!" 
 
 Crang opened the door. The little procession 
 stepped out into the long, low cellar, and started down 
 toward the lower end. The three men, from playing 
 dice at the table near the door, rose uncertainly to 
 their feet. John Bruce's revolver in his pocket pressed 
 suggestively against Crang's side.
 
 THE HOSTAGE 125 
 
 "It's all right, boys," Crang called out. "Open the 
 door. "I've got Birdie outside." 
 
 They passed the table, passed through the doorway, 
 and the door closed behind them. In the semi-dark- 
 ness here, as they headed for the exit to the lane, 
 Larmon touched John Bruce's elbow. 
 
 "He brought me down here in a taxi," Larmon 
 whispered. "I suppose now it was one of his men 
 who drove it." 
 
 "Birdie, he just told those rats," said John Bruce 
 tersely. "Do you hear, Crang? If he's still out there, 
 send him away!" 
 
 They emerged into the lane. A taxi<ab stood oppo- 
 site the exit; Birdie lounged in the driver's seat. 
 
 John Bruce's revolver bored into Crang's side. 
 
 "Beat it!" said Crang surlily to the man. "I won't 
 want you any more." 
 
 "You won't what?" Birdie leaned out from his 
 seat. He stared for a moment in bewilderment, and 
 then started to climb out of the taxi. 
 
 The pressure of John Bruce's revolver increased 
 steadily. 
 
 "Damn it, you fool!" Crang screamed out wildly. 
 "Beat it! Do you hear? Beat it!" 
 
 Birdie's face darkened. 
 
 "Oh sure!" he muttered, with a disgruntled oath. 
 He shot the gears into place with a vicious snap. 
 "Sure anything you say!" The taxi roared down the 
 lane, and disappeared around the corner in a volley 
 of exhausts. 
 
 "Go on!" John Bruce ordered. 
 
 At the corner of the lane John Bruce turned to 
 Larmon.
 
 226 PAWNED 
 
 "You are safe, and out of it now," he said. "I am 
 going to ask you to step into the first store we pass 
 and get me some good light rope, but after that I think 
 you had better leave us. If anything happened 
 between here and the steamer, or on the steamer, you 
 would be implicated." 
 
 "Tckf" It was the quill toothpick again. "I'll get 
 the rope with pleasure," Larmon said calmly; "but I 
 never lay down a good hand. I am going to the 
 steamer." 
 
 John Bruce shrugged his shoulders. Larmon some- 
 how seemed an abstract consideration at the moment 
 but Larmon had had his chance. 
 
 "What time does the steamer sail, Crang?" John 
 Bruce bit off his words, as he looked at his watch. 
 
 "Four o'clock," Crang mumbled. 
 
 "Walk faster!" 
 
 They stopped for a moment in front of a store. 
 Larmon entered, and came out again almost imme- 
 diately with a package under his arm. 
 
 A block farther on John Bruce hailed a passing taxi. 
 
 Fifteen minutes later, pushing through the throng 
 on the dock, John Bruce produced the ticket, they 
 mounted the gangway, and a steward led them to a 
 stateroom on one of the lower decks. 
 
 John Bruce closed the door and locked it. His 
 revolver was in his hand now. 
 
 "There isn't much time left," he said coldly. "About 
 ten minutes." 
 
 At the end of five, Crang, bound hand and foot, and 
 gagged, lay lashed into his bunk. 
 
 A bugle sounded the "All Ashore I" 
 
 John Bruce tossed the ticket on the couch.
 
 THE HOSTAGE 227 
 
 "There's your ticket!" he said sternly. "I 
 wouldn't advise you to come back nor worry any 
 further about exposing Mr. Larmon, unless you want 
 to force a showdown that will place some very inter- 
 esting details connected with the life of Doctor Crang 
 in the hands of the police I" 
 
 The bugle rang out again. 
 
 John Bruce, without a further glance in Crang's 
 direction, opened the cabin window slightly, then 
 unlocking the door, he motioned Larmon to pass out. 
 He locked the door on the outside, stepped to the 
 deck, tossed the key through the window to the floor 
 of Crang's cabin, and drew the window shut again. 
 A minute more, and with Larmon beside him, he was 
 standing on the dock. 
 
 Neither John Bruce nor Larmon spoke. 
 
 And presently the tugs caught hold of the big liner 
 and warped her out of her berth. 
 
 "John Bruce" had sailed for South America.
 
 XIX 
 
 CABIN H-I4 
 
 FOR a time, Crang lay passive. Fear was domi- 
 nant. He could move his head a little, and he 
 kept screwing it around to cast furtive glances 
 at the cabin door. He was sure that Bruce was still 
 outside there, or somewhere near Bruce wouldn't 
 leave the ship until the last moment, and . . . 
 
 The craven soul of the man shrivelled within him. 
 Bruce's eyes! Damn Bruce's eyes, and that hideous 
 touch of Bruce's pocketed revolver! The fool would 
 even have killed him back there in the cellar if it 
 hadn't been for Larmon! He could still feel those 
 strangling fingers at his throat. 
 
 Mechanically he made to lift his hand to touch the 
 bruised and swollen flesh but he could not move his 
 hands because they were bound behind his back and 
 beneath him. The fool! The fool had wanted to 
 shoot. Perhaps with Larmon out of the road, and just 
 at the last minute, that was what he still meant to do 
 to open the door there, and and kill. Terror 
 swept upon him. He tried to scream but a gag was 
 in his mouth. 
 
 What was that? He felt a slight jar, another, and 
 another. He listened intently. He heard a steady 
 throbbing sound. The ship was moving moving! 
 That meant that Bruce was ashore that he need not 
 
 228
 
 CABIN H-I4 229 
 
 fear that door there. He snarled to himself, suddenly 
 arrogant with courage. To the devil's pit with John 
 Bruce ! 
 
 He began to work at his bonds now at first with 
 a measure of contained persistence; and then, a he 
 made no progress, angry impatience came, and he 
 began to struggle. He tossed now, and twisted him- 
 self about on the bunk, and strained with all his might. 
 The gag choked him. The bonds but grew the tighter 
 and cut into his wrists. He became a madman in his 
 frenzy. Passion and fury lashed him on and on. He 
 flogged himself into effort beyond physical endurance 
 and finally collapsed through utter exhaustion, a 
 limp thing bathed in sweat. 
 
 Then he began the struggle again, and after that 
 again. The periods came in cycles . . . the insensate 
 fury . . . exhaustion . . . recuperation . . . 
 
 After a time he no longer heard the throbbing of 
 the engines or the movement of the ship during those 
 moments when he lay passive in weakness, nor did the 
 desire for freedom, for merely freedom's sake, any 
 longer actuate him; instead, beneath him, in his pocket, 
 he had felt the little case that held his hypodermic 
 syringe, and it had brought the craving for the drug. 
 And the craving grew. It grew until it became torture, 
 and to satisfy it became the one incentive that pos- 
 sessed him. It tormented, it mocked him. He could 
 feel it there in his pocket, always there in his pocket. 
 Hell could not keep him from it. He blasphemed at 
 the ropes that kept it from his fingers' reach, and he 
 wrenched and tore at them, and sobbed and snarled 
 and after long minutes of maniacal struggle would
 
 2 3 o PAWNED 
 
 again lie trembling, drained of the power either to 
 move or think. 
 
 It grew dark in the cabin. 
 
 And now, in one of his series of struggles, some- 
 thing snapped beneath him a cord ! One of the cords 
 around his wrists had given away. He tore one hand 
 free. Yes, yes he could reach his pocket! Ha, ha 
 his pocket! And now his other hand was free. He 
 snatched at the hypodermic syringe with feverish 
 greed and the plunger went home as the needle 
 pricked its way beneath the skin of his forearm. 
 
 He reached up then, unloosened the knots at the 
 back of his head, and spat the gag 'from his mouth. 
 His penknife freed his legs. He stood up tottered 
 and sat down on the edge of his bunk. He remained 
 motionless for a few minutes. The drug steadied him. 
 
 He looked around him. It was dark. The ship 
 was very still; there was no sense of movement, none 
 of vibration from the engines. It seemed to him that 
 in a hazy, vague way he had noticed that fact a long 
 time ago. But, nevertheless, it was very curious! 
 
 He stood up again. This was better! He felt 
 secure enough now on his feet. It was only as -though 
 a great fatigue were upon him, and that he seemed to 
 be weighted down with lead nothing more than that. 
 He crossed to the window, drew the shade, and opened 
 the window itself. 
 
 And then, for a long time, puzzled, his brows drawn 
 together, he stood there staring out. Close at hand, 
 though but faintly outlined in the darkness, he could 
 see the shore. And it was not imagination, for beyond 
 the shore line he could see innumerable little lights 
 twinkling.
 
 CABIN H-I4 231 
 
 It was strange ! He rubbed his eyes. Here was 
 something else! The window opened on a narrow, 
 dimly lighted and deserted deck one of the lower 
 decks, he remembered. Below this deck, and evi- 
 dently alongside of the steamer's hull, he could make 
 out the upper-structure of some small vessel. 
 
 A figure came along the deck now from the forward 
 end one of the crew, Crang could see from the other's 
 dress, as the man drew nearer. Crang thrust his head 
 out of the window. 
 
 "I say, look here!" he called, as the other came 
 opposite to him. "What's all this about? Where are 
 we?" 
 
 "Down the bay a bit, that's all, sir," the man 
 answered. "We've had some engine trouble." 
 
 Crang pointed to the small vessel alongside. A 
 sudden, wild elation surged upon him. 
 
 "That's a tug down there, isn't it?" he said. 
 "They're going to tow us back, I suppose?" 
 
 "Oh, no, sir," the man replied. "It's the company's 
 tug, all right, that they sent down to us, but she'll be 
 going back as soon as we're off again. It's nothin' 
 serious, and we won't be more'n another hour, sir." 
 
 Crang snarled under his breath. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, sir?" inquired the man. 
 
 "Nothing!" said Crang. "I'm much obliged to 
 you." 
 
 "Thank you, sir," said the man, and went on along 
 the deck. 
 
 Crang returned to his bunk and sat down again on 
 its edge. He could still see the reflection of the shore 
 lights. This seemed to obsess him. He kept staring 
 out through the window. Suddenly he chuckled
 
 2 3 2 PAWNED 
 
 hoarsely and then, as suddenly, his fist clenched and 
 he shook it in the air. 
 
 "Another hour, eh?" he muttered. "Then, I'll get 
 you yet, Bruce ha, ha, I'll get you yet! But I'll make 
 sure of Claire first this time! That's where I made 
 the mistake but Doctor Sydney Angus Crang doesn't 
 make two mistakes alike!" 
 
 He relapsed into silent meditation. At the end of 
 five minutes he spoke again. 
 
 "I'm a clever man," said Doctor Crang between his 
 teeth. "First Claire then you, Bruce. And I'll take 
 good care that you know nothing, Mr. John Bruce 
 not this time not until it is too late both ways! 
 I'll show you! I'll teach you to pit your clumsy wits 
 against me!" 
 
 He got up from the bunk and turned on a single 
 incandescent light. Bruce had thrown the key in 
 through the window, he remembered. Yes, there it 
 was on the floor! He picked it up; and quickly and 
 methodically he began to work now. He gathered 
 together the pieces of rope with which he had been 
 bound, tucked them under his coat, and running to the 
 window, thrust his head outside again. The deck was 
 clear, there was not a soul in sight. He unlocked the 
 door now, stepped noiselessly out on the deck, dropped 
 the pieces of rope overboard, and then, returning to 
 the cabin, smiled ironically as he made a mental note 
 of the number on the cabin door. 
 
 "H-I4," observed Doctor Crang grimly. "Quite 
 so H-I41" 
 
 He halted before the mirror and removed the more 
 flagrant traces of his dishevelled appearance; then he
 
 CABIN H-i 4 233 
 
 took off his coat, flung it on a chair, pushed the electric 
 button, and returned to his bunk. 
 
 He was sitting up on the edge of the bunk, and 
 yawning, as the steward answered his summons. 
 
 "Hello, steward!" said Crang somewhat thickly. 
 "I guess I've overslept myself. Overdid the send-off 
 a little, I'm afraid. What are we stopping for?" 
 
 "A little engine trouble, sir," the steward answered. 
 "It was right after we started. We're only a little way 
 down the bay. But it's all right, sir. Nothing serious. 
 We'll be off again shortly." 
 
 "Humph!" Crang dismissed the subject with a 
 grunt. "I suppose I've missed my dinner, eh?" 
 
 "Oh, no, sir," replied the steward. "It's only just 
 a little after seven now, sir." 
 
 "That's better!" smiled Crang. "Well, get my 
 traps right up here, like a good fellow, and I'll clean 
 up a bit. And hurry, will you?" 
 
 The steward looked a little blank. 
 
 "Your traps, sir?" 
 
 "Luggage traps baggage," defined Crang with 
 facetious terseness. 
 
 "Oh, I knew what you meant, sir," said the stew- 
 ard. "It's where your traps are, sir? I I thought 
 it a bit strange you didn't have anything with you when 
 you came aboard this afternoon." 
 
 "Did you, now?" inquired Crang sweetly. "Well, 
 then, the sooner you get them here the less strange it 
 will seem. Beat it!" 
 
 "But where are they, sir?" persisted the man. 
 
 "Where are they? Good God, how do I know!" 
 ejaculated Crang sarcastically. "I sent them down to 
 the ship early this morning to be put aboard in your
 
 234 PAWNED 
 
 baggage room. You've got a baggage room aboard, 
 haven't you?" 
 
 "Yes, sir; but " 
 
 "I would suggest the baggage room, then!" inter- 
 rupted Crang crisply. "And if they are not there, ask 
 the captain to let you have any of the crew who aren't 
 too busy on this engine trouble, and get them to help 
 you search the ship!" 
 
 The steward grinned. 
 
 "Very good, sir. Would you mind describing the 
 pieces?" 
 
 "There are four," said Crang with exaggerated 
 patience, as he created the non-existent baggage out of 
 his imagination. "And they have all got your 
 'wanted on the voyage' labels, with my name and cabin 
 written on them Mr. John Bruce; Cabin H-I4- 
 There is a steamer trunk, and two brown alligator- 
 leather which I do not guarantee to be genuine in 
 spite of the price suit-cases, and a hat box." 
 
 "Very good, sir," said the steward again and hur- 
 ried from the cabin. 
 
 Crang got up and went to the window. The tug 
 alongside seemed to furnish him with engrossing 
 reflections, for he stood there, smiling queerly, until 
 he swung around in answer to a knock upon his door. 
 
 A man in ship's uniform entered ahead of the 
 steward. 
 
 "The steward here, sir," said the man, "was speak- 
 ing about your baggage." 
 
 "Speaking about it!" murmured Crang helplessly. 
 "I told him to get it." 
 
 "Yes, sir," said the man; "but I am sorry to say 
 that no such baggage as you describe has come aboard
 
 CABIN H-i4 235 
 
 the ship. There has been no baggage at all for Mr. 
 Bruce, sir." 
 
 "Not aboard!" gasped Crang. "Then then where 
 is it?" 
 
 "I can't say, sir, of course," said the other sympa- 
 thetically. "I am only stating a fact to you." 
 
 "But but I sent it down to the dock early this 
 morning." Crang's voice was rising in well-affected 
 excitement. "It must be here ! I tell you, it must be 
 here!" 
 
 The man shook his head. 
 
 "It's my job, sir. I'm sorry, Mr. Bruce, but I know 
 positively your baggage is not aboard this ship." 
 
 "Then what's to be done?" Crang's voice rose 
 louder. "You've left it on the dock, that's what 
 fools, thundering idots!" 
 
 The man with the baggage job looked uncomfort- 
 able. 
 
 Crang danced up and down on the floor of the cabin. 
 
 "On the way to South America to stay six months," 
 he yelled insanely, "and my baggage left behind! I 
 can't go on without my baggage, do you hear?" 
 
 There was a whispered conference between the two 
 men. The steward vanished through the doorway. 
 
 "I've sent for the purser, sir," volunteered the 
 other. 
 
 Crang stormed up and down the floor. 
 
 Presently the purser appeared. Crang swung on 
 him on the instant. 
 
 "You've left my baggage behind!" he shouted. 
 "My papers, plans, everything! I can't go on without 
 them!" He shook his fist. "You'll either get that 
 baggage here, or get me ashore !"
 
 236 PAWNED 
 
 The purser eyed Crang's fist, and stiffened percept- 
 ibly. 
 
 "I'm not a magician, Mr. Bruce," he said quietly. 
 "I am very sorry indeed that this should have hap- 
 pened; but it is quite impossible, of course, to get your 
 baggage here." 
 
 "Then get me ashore !" Crang snatched up his coat 
 and put it on. "There's a tug, or something, out there, 
 isn't there?" 
 
 "Yes," said the purser, "that's the company's tug, 
 and I suppose you could go back on her, if you think 
 you " 
 
 "Think!" howled Crang. "I don't think anything 
 
 about it ! I know that " His eye suddenly caught 
 
 the envelope on the couch containing the ticket. "And 
 what about this?" He picked it up, jerked out the 
 ticket, and waved it in the purser's face. 
 
 The purser refused the document. 
 
 "You'll have to see the New York office, sir, about 
 that," he said. 
 
 "I will, will I?" snapped Crang. "Well, that isn't 
 all I'll see them about I" 
 
 "I am sure they will do what they can, sir, to make 
 things right if they are to blame," said the purser a 
 little sharply. "But it might have been your teamer, 
 you know, who made the mistake." He turned to the 
 door. "I will arrange about your going ashore, Mr. 
 Bruce." 
 
 "Yes!" growled Crang savagely and five minutes 
 later, swearing volubly for the benefit of those within 
 hearing, he wriggled his way down a rope ladder to 
 the tug's deck. 
 
 A deck hand led him to the pilot house.
 
 CABIN H-i4 237 
 
 "The captain'll be along as soon as we start," the 
 man informed him. 
 
 Crang made himself comfortable in a cushioned 
 chair. Ke sat chuckling maliciously, as he stared up 
 at the towering hull that twinkled with lights above 
 him and then the chuckle died away, and little red 
 spots came and burned in his sallow cheeks, and his 
 lips worked, and his hands curled until the nails bit 
 into the palms. 
 
 He lost track of time. 
 
 A man came into the pilot house, and gave the 
 wheel a spin. 
 
 "We're off!" said the man heartily. "You've had 
 tough luck, I hear." 
 
 Crang' s fingers caressed his bruised and swollen 
 throat. 
 
 "Yes," said Crang with a thin smile; "but I think 
 somebody is going to pay the bill in full." 
 
 The tug was heading toward New York.
 
 XX 
 
 OUTSIDE THE DOOR 
 
 HAWKINS very cautiously got out of bed, and 
 consulted his watch. It was five minutes 
 after nine. He stole to the door and listened. 
 There was no sound from below. Mrs. Hedges, who 
 had been his jailor all day, had now, he was fairly 
 certain, finally retired for the night. 
 
 The old blue eyes blinked in perplexity and he 
 scratched at the fringe of hair behind his ear in a per- 
 turbed way, as he began, still cautiously, to dress. It 
 had been a very dreary day, during which he had suf- 
 fered not a little physical discomfort. Mrs. Hedges 
 had been assiduous in her attentions; more than that, 
 even motherly. 
 
 "God bless her!" said Hawkins to one of his boots, 
 as he laced it up. "Only she wouldn't let me out." 
 
 He stopped lacing the boot suddenly, and sat staring 
 in front of him. Mrs. Hedges had been more than 
 even motherly; she had been been yes, that was it 
 been puzzling. If she had said Paul Veniza wanted 
 to see him, why had she insisted that Paul Veniza 
 didn't want to see him? Hawkins' gaze at the blank 
 wall in front of him became a little more bewildered. 
 He tried to reconstruct certain fragments of conver- 
 sation that had taken place between Mrs. Hedges and 
 himself. 
 
 238
 
 OUTSIDE THE DOOR 239 
 
 "Now, you just lie still," Mrs. Hedges had insisted 
 during the afternoon, when he had wanted to get up. 
 "Claire told me " 
 
 He remembered the sinking of his heart as he had 
 interrupted her. 
 
 "Claire," he had said anxiously, "Claire ain't she 
 don't know about this, does she?" 
 
 "Certainly not!" Mrs. Hedges had assured him. 
 
 "But you said she told you something" Hawkins 
 continued to reconstruct the conversation "so she 
 must have been here." 
 
 "Law!" Mrs. Hedges had returned. "I nearly put 
 my foot in it, didn't I I I mean starting you in to 
 worry. Certainly she don't know anything about it. 
 She just came over to say her father wanted to see you, 
 and I says to her you ain't feeling very well, and she 
 says it's all right." 
 
 Hawkins resumed his dressing. His mind continued 
 to mull over the afternoon. Later on he had made 
 another attempt to get up. He was feeling quite well 
 enough to go over and find out what Paul Veniza 
 wanted. And then Mrs. Hedges, as though she had 
 quite forgotten what she had said before, said that 
 Paul Veniza didn't want to see him, or else he'd send 
 word. 
 
 Hawkins scratched behind his ear again. His head 
 wasn't quite clear. Maybe he had not got it all quite 
 straight. Suddenly he smiled. Of course! There 
 wasn't anything to be bewildered about. Mrs. Hedges 
 was just simply determined that he would not go out 
 and he was equally determined that he would. Paul 
 Veniza or not, he had been long enough in bed! 
 
 "Yes," said Hawkins; "God bless her, that's it!"
 
 2 4 o PAWNED 
 
 Hawkins completed his toilet, and picking up his old 
 felt hat, reconnoitered the hallway. Thereafter he 
 descended the stairs with amazing stealth. 
 
 "God bless her!" said Hawkins softly again, as he 
 gained the front door without raising any alarm and 
 stepped outside and then Hawkins halted as though 
 his feet had been suddenly rooted to the spot. 
 
 At the curb in front of the house was an old closed 
 motor car. Hawkins stared at it. Then he rubbed 
 his eyes. Then he stared at it again. He stared for 
 a long time. No ; there was no doubt about it it was 
 the traveling pawn-shop. 
 
 Hawkins' mind harked back to the preceding eve- 
 ning. He had met two men in the saloon around the 
 corner, whom he had seen there once or twice before. 
 He had had several drinks with them, and then at some 
 one's suggestion, he could not recollect whose, there 
 had followed the purchase of a few bottles, and an 
 adjournment to his room for a convivial evening. 
 After that his mind was quite blank. He could not 
 even remember having taken out the car. 
 
 "I I must have been bad," said Hawkins to him- 
 self, with a rueful countenance. 
 
 He descended the steps, and approached the car 
 with the intention of running it into the shed that 
 served as garage behind the house. But again he 
 halted. 
 
 "No," said Hawkins, with a furtive glance over his 
 shoulder at the front door; "if I started it up, Mrs. 
 Hedges would hear me. I guess I'll wait till I come 
 back." 
 
 Hawkins went on down the street and turned the 
 corner. He had grown a little dejected.
 
 OUTSIDE THE DOOR 241 
 
 "I'm just an old bum," said Hawkins, "who ain't 
 ever going to swear off any more 'cause it don't do any 
 good." 
 
 He spoke aloud to himself again, as he approached 
 the door of Paul Veniza's house. 
 
 "But I am her daddy," whispered the old man 
 fiercely; "and she is my little girl. It don't change 
 nothing her not knowing, except except she ain't 
 hiding her face in shame, and" Hawkins' voice broke 
 a little "and that I ain't never had her in these arms 
 like I'd ought to have." A gleam of anger came sud- 
 denly into the watery blue eyes under the shaggy 
 brows. "But he ain't going to have her in his! That 
 devil from the pit of hell ain't going to kill the soul of 
 my little girl somehow he ain't that's all I got to 
 live for old Hawkins ha, ha ! somehow old Haw- 
 kins'll " 
 
 Hawkins' soliloquy ended abruptly. He was 
 startled to find himself in the act of opening the front 
 door of the one-time pawn-shop. He even hesitated, 
 holding the door ajar and then suddenly he pushed 
 the door wider open and stepped softly inside, as the 
 sound of a voice, angry and threatening in its tones, 
 though strangely low and muffled, reached him. He 
 knew that voice. It was Doctor Crang's. 
 
 It was dark here in the room that had once been 
 the office of the pawn-shop, and upon which the front 
 door opened directly; but from under the door leading 
 into the rear room there showed a thread of light, and 
 it was from there that Hawkins now placed the voice. 
 
 He stood irresolute. He stared around him. Up- 
 stairs it was dark. Paul Veniza, because he had not 
 been well, had probably gone to bed early unless it
 
 242 PAWNED 
 
 was Paul in there with Crang. No ! He caught the 
 sound of Claire's voice now, and it seemed to come to 
 him brokenly, in a strangely tired, dreary way. And 
 then Crang's voice again, and an ugly laugh. 
 
 The wrinkled skin of Hawkins' old weather-beaten 
 hands grew taut and white across the knuckles as his 
 fists clenched. He tiptoed toward the door. He could 
 hear distinctly now. It was Crang speaking: 
 
 ". . . I'm not a fool! I did not speak about it to 
 make you lie again. I don't care where you met him, 
 or how long you had been lovers before he crawled in 
 here. That's nothing to do with it. It's enough that 
 I know you were lovers before that night. But you 
 belong to me now. Understand? I spoke of it 
 because the sooner you realize that you are the one who 
 is the cause of the trouble between Bruce and me, the 
 better for him! I wasn't crowding you before, but 
 I'm through fooling with it now for keeps. I let you 
 go too long as it is. To-day, for just a little while, 
 he won out yes, by God, if you want the truth, he 
 nearly killed me. He got me tied in a cabin of a ship 
 that sailed this afternoon for South America; but the 
 engines broke down in the harbor, and, damn him, I'm 
 back! You know what for. I've told you. There's 
 one way to save him. I've told you what that is, too. 
 I'm waiting for your answer." 
 
 "Why should it be me?" Claire's voice was dull and 
 colorless. "Why cannot you leave me alone I, who 
 hate and loathe you? Do you look for happiness with 
 me? There will be none." 
 
 "Why should it be you?" Crang's voice was sud- 
 denly hoarse with passion. "Because you have set my 
 brain on fire, because you have filled me with a mad-
 
 OUTSIDE THE DOOR 243 
 
 ness that would mock God Himself if He stood 
 between us. Do you understand Claire? Claire! 
 Do you understand? Because I want you, because I'm 
 going to have you, because I'm going to own you yes, 
 own you, one way or another by marriage, or " 
 
 A low cry came from Claire. It tore at Hawkins' ( 
 heart in its bitter shame and anguish. His face 
 blanched. 
 
 "Well, you asked for it, and you got it!" Crang 
 snarled. "Now, I'm waiting for your answer." 
 
 There was a long pause, then Claire spoke with an 
 obvious effort to steady her voice: 
 
 "Have I got to buy him twice?" 
 
 "You haven't bought him once yet," Crang answered 
 swiftly. "I performed my part of the bargain. I 
 haven't been paid." 
 
 And Hawkins, standing there, listening, heard noth- 
 ing for a long time ; and then he distinguished Claire's 
 voice, but it was so low that he could not catch the 
 words. But he heard Crang's reply because it was 
 loud with what seemed like passionate savagery and 
 triumph : 
 
 "You're wise, my dear! At eight o'clock to-mor- 
 row morning, then. And since Mr. John Bruce's skin 
 is involved in this, you quite understand that he is not 
 to be communicated with in any way?" 
 
 "I understand." Hawkins this time caught the 
 almost inaudible reply. 
 
 "All right!" Crang said. "There's a padre I know, 
 who's down on Staten Island now. We'll go down 
 there and be married without any fuss. I'll be here at 
 eight o'clock. Your father isn't fit to ride in that 
 rattle-trap old bus of yours. I'll have a comfortable
 
 244 PAWNED 
 
 limousine for him, and you can go with him. Hawkins 
 can drive me, and" he was laughing softly "and be 
 my best man. I'll see that he knows about it in time 
 
 f-rv " 
 
 Like a blind man, Hawkins was groping his way 
 toward the front door. Married! They were to be 
 married to-morrow morning! 
 
 He found himself on the street. He hurried. 
 Impulse drove him along. He did not reason. His 
 mind was a tortured thing. And yet he laughed as he 
 scurried around the corner, laughed in an unhinged 
 way, and raised both hands above his head and 
 pounded at the air with his doubled fists. They were 
 to be married to-morrow morning, and he he was to 
 be best man. And as he laughed, his once ruddy, 
 weather-beaten face was white as a winding-sheet, and 
 in the whiteness there was stamped a look that it was 
 good on no man's face to see. 
 
 And then suddenly two great tears rolled down his 
 cheeks, opening the flood gates of his soul. 
 
 "My little girl!" he sobbed. "Daddy's little girl!" 
 
 And reason and a strange calmness came. 
 
 "John Bruce," he said. "He loves her too." 
 
 And in front of Mrs. Hedges' rooming-house he 
 climbed into the driver's seat of the old traveling 
 pawn-shop. 
 
 It didn't matter now how much noise he made.
 
 XXI 
 
 THE LAST CHANCE 
 
 JOHN BRUCE closed the door of Larmon's suite, 
 and, taking the elevator, went up to his own room 
 in the Bayne-Miloy Hotel, two floors above. 
 Here, he flung himself almost wearily into a chair. 
 Larmon had gone to bed; but bed offered no appeal to 
 him, John Bruce, in spite of the fact that he was con- 
 scious of great mental fatigue. Bed without sleep was 
 a horror, and his spirits were too depressed to make 
 sleep even a possibility. 
 
 From a purely selfish standpoint, and he admitted 
 to utter selfishness now, it had been a hollow victory. 
 Crang was gone, disposed of, and as far as Larmon 
 was concerned the man no longer existed, for if Crang 
 had held certain intimate knowledge of Larmon's life 
 over Larmon's head, Larmon was now in exactly the 
 same position in respect to Crang. And Crang, too, 
 for the time being at least, was no longer a factor in 
 Claire's life. 
 
 He smiled grimly to himself. Hollow! The victory 
 had been sweeping, complete, conclusive for every 
 one but himself! He had not even waited to leave the 
 dock before he had telephoned Claire. And Claire 
 had He rose suddenly and began to walk fever- 
 ishly up and down the room. Hollow! He laughed 
 out shortly. She had curtly refused to talk to him. 
 
 245
 
 246 PAWNED 
 
 He had only meant to telephone to say that he was on 
 the way up to her house, and he had managed to say 
 that much and she had coldly, contemptuously in- 
 formed him that she would not be at home, and had 
 hung up the receiver. She had given him no oppor- 
 tunity to say any more. 
 
 It was not like Claire. It had been so unexpected 
 that he had left the dock mentally dazed. The sight 
 of the liner out in the stream had seemed to mock 
 him ironically. After that, until now, he had followed 
 the line of least resistance. He had come back here 
 to the hotel, and dined with Larmon. 
 
 He stood still in the middle of the room. Larmon ! 
 It had been a singular evening that he had just spent 
 with Larmon. He had got a new viewpoint on 
 Larmon a strange, grave, sympathetic Larmon. He 
 had given Larmon the details of everything that had 
 happened; and Larmon had led him on to talk of 
 everything, and anything, it seemed now, as he looked 
 back upon it. And somehow, he could not tell why, 
 even while he felt that Larmon was drawing him out, 
 urging him even to speak of Claire and the most inti- 
 mate things of the last few weeks, he had been glad 
 to respond. It was only when Larmon for a little 
 while had discussed his great chain of gambling houses 
 that he, John Bruce, had felt curiously detached from 
 it all and estranged from the other, as though he were 
 masquerading as some one else, as some one whom 
 Larmon believed to be John Bruce, and as though he 
 in his true self had no interest in these matters any 
 longer in a personal sense, as though his connection 
 with them had automatically ceased with the climax 
 of Crang'-s removal. It was queer! But then his mind
 
 THE LAST CHANCE 247 
 
 had been obsessed, elsewhere. And yet here, too, he 
 had been frank with Larmon frank enough to admit 
 the feelings that had prompted him to refrain from 
 actual play only two nights before. He remembered 
 the quick little tattoo of Larmon's quill toothpick at 
 this admission, and Larmon's tight little smile. 
 
 Yes, it had been a singular evening! In those few 
 hours he seemed to have grown to know Larmon as 
 though he had known the man all his life, to be drawn 
 to Larmon in a personal way, to admire Larmon as a 
 man. There was something of debonair sang-froid 
 about Larmon. He had made no fuss over his escape 
 that day, and much less been effusive in any thanks. 
 Larmon's philosophy of life was apparently definitely 
 fixed and settled; and, in so far as Larmon was con- 
 cerned, satisfactorily so. The whole world to Larmon 
 was a gamble and, consistently enough, his own ac- 
 tivities in that respect were on as vast a scale as possi- 
 ble. 
 
 Larmon with his unemotional face and his quill 
 toothpick ! No ; not unemotional ! When Larmon had 
 finally pleaded fatigue and a desire to go to bed, there 
 had been something in Larmon's face and Larmon's 
 "good-night," that still lingered with him, John Bruce, 
 and which even now he could not define. 
 
 John Bruce's brows gathered into tight furrows. 
 His mind had flown off at a tangent. There was 
 Claire! It had not been like Claire. Nor had he 
 meant, nor did he intend now to accept her dismissal 
 as final. But what was it that had happened? What 
 was it? He could think of only one thing the letter 
 he had written to Larmon, and which, on that account, 
 he had asked for and received back from the other.
 
 248 PAWNED 
 
 It was a certainty that Crang's hand was in this some- 
 where, and Crang had said that he had shown the letter 
 to Claire, but 
 
 The telephone rang. 
 
 John Bruce stepped to the desk, and picked up the 
 instrument. 
 
 "Yes? Hello!" he said. 
 
 The clerk's voice from the office answered him: 
 
 "There's a man down here, Mr. Bruce, who insists 
 on seeing you. He's pretty seedy, and looks as though 
 he had been on a bat for a week. I'm sorry to bother 
 you, but we can't get rid of him. He says his name is 
 Hawkins." 
 
 "Send him up at once!" said John Bruce sharply. 
 
 "Yes, sir." The clerk coughed deprecatingly. 
 "Very well, Mr. Bruce. Thank you." 
 
 Hawkins! John Bruce walked to the door of his 
 suite, and opened it. He looked at his watch. It was 
 getting on now to eleven o'clock. What on earth had 
 brought Hawkins up here to the Bayne-Miloy at this 
 hour? He smiled a little grimly as he stood waiting 
 on the threshold, and the recollection of the night 
 before last came back to him. Well, at least, he was 
 safe to-night from any kidnaping through the medium 
 of Hawkins ! 
 
 The elevator door clanged a little way down the 
 corridor, and Hawkins, followed by a bell boy, 
 stepped out. 
 
 "This way, Hawkins !" John Bruce called and dis- 
 missed the bell boy with a wave of his hand. 
 
 And then, as Hawkins reached the door, John Bruce 
 stared in amazement, and for a moment absolved the 
 clerk for his diagnosis. Hawkins' face was like parch-
 
 THE LAST CHANCE 249 
 
 ment, devoid of color; his hands, twisting at the old 
 felt hat, trembled as with the ague ; and the blue eyes, 
 fever-burned they seemed, stared out in a fixed way 
 from under the shaggy brows. 
 
 John Bruce pulled the old man inside the apartment, 
 and closed the door. 
 
 "Good Lord, Hawkins I" he exclaimed anxiously. 
 "What's the matter with you?" 
 
 Hawkins caught at John Bruce's arm. 
 
 "It's to-morrow morning," he said hoarsely. "To- 
 morrow morning at eight o'clock." 
 
 "What is?" inquired John Bruce. He forced the 
 old cabman gently into a chair. "You're upset, Haw- 
 kins. Here wait! I'll get you something." 
 
 But Hawkins held him back. 
 
 "I don't want a drink." There was misery, bitter- 
 ness, in Hawkins' voice. "I don't want a drink for 
 once. It's come! It it's come to the end now. 
 Crang and and my little girl are going to be married 
 to-morrow morning." 
 
 And then John Bruce laughed quietly, and laid his 
 hand reassuringly on the old cabman's shoulder. 
 
 "No, Hawkins," he said. "I don't know where you 
 got that idea ; but it won't be to-morrow morning, nor 
 for a good many to-morrow mornings either. Crang 
 at the present moment is on board a ship on his way to 
 South America." 
 
 "I know," said Hawkins dully. "But half an hour 
 ago I left him with Claire in Paul Veniza's house." 
 
 John Bruce's hand tightened on Hawkins' shoulder 
 until the old man winced. 
 
 "You what?" John Bruce cried out. 
 
 "Yes," said Hawkins. "I heard him talking about
 
 250 PAWNED 
 
 it in the back room. They didn't know I was there. 
 He said there was something the matter with the 
 engines." 
 
 Crang back ! John Bruce's face was set as chiselled 
 marble. 
 
 "Do you know what you are saying, Hawkins?" he 
 demanded fiercely, as though to trample down and 
 sweep aside by the brute force of his own incredulity 
 the other's assertion. "Do you know what you are 
 saying do you?" 
 
 "Yes, I know," said Hawkins helplessly. "He said 
 you nearly killed him to-day, and " 
 
 John Bruce's laugh, with a savagery that had him 
 now at its mercy and in its grip, rang suddenly through 
 the room. 
 
 "Then, for once, he told the truth !" he cried. "He 
 tricked me cold with that old bus last night, and 
 trapped me in the rats' hole where his gang holds out, 
 but " 
 
 Hawkins stumbled to his feet. His face seemed to 
 have grown grayer still, more haggard and full of 
 abject misery. 
 
 "That's it, then!" he whispered. "I I understand 
 now. I was drunk last night. Oh, my God, I'm to 
 blame for this, too !" 
 
 John Bruce pushed Hawkins almost roughly back 
 into his chair. Last night was gone. It was of no 
 significance any more. 
 
 "Never mind about that!" he said between his 
 teeth. "It doesn't matter now. Nothing matters now 
 except Claire. Go on, tell me! What does it mean? 
 To-morrow morning, you said. Why this sudden de- 
 cision about to-morrow morning?"
 
 THE LAST CHANCE 251 
 
 Hawkins' lips seemed dry. He circled them again 
 and again with his tongue. 
 
 "He said you nearly killed him to-day, as I I told 
 you," said Hawkins, fumbling for his words. "And 
 he said that you had been lovers before that night 
 when you were stabbed, and that he wasn't going to 
 stand for it any longer, and and" Hawkins' voice 
 broke "and that she belonged to him. And he said 
 she was the only one who could stop this trouble be- 
 tween you and him before it was too late, and that was 
 by marrying him at once. And and Claire said she 
 would." 
 
 Hawkins stopped. His old felt hat was on his 
 knees, and he twisted at it aimlessly with shaking 
 fingers. 
 
 John Bruce stood motionless. 
 
 "Go on!" he bit off his words. 
 
 "That's all," said Hawkins, "except he made her 
 promise not to let you know anything about it. They're 
 going to leave the house to-morrow morning, and are 
 going down to Staten Island to get married because 
 there's some minister down there he knows, Crang 
 said. And I'm to take Crang, and and" the old 
 man turned away his face "I I'm to be best man. 
 That that's what he said best man." 
 
 John Bruce walked abruptly to the window, and 
 stared blindly out into the night. His brain seemed 
 afire. 
 
 For a time neither man spoke. 
 
 "You said you loved her," said Hawkins at last. 
 "I came to you. There wasn't any other place to go. 
 Paul Veniza can't do anything." 
 
 John Bruce turned from the window, and walking to
 
 252 PAWNED 
 
 Hawkins, laid his two hands on the other's shoulders. 
 He was calmer now. 
 
 "Yes, I love her," he said huskily. "And I think 
 I am not sure but I think now there is a chance that 
 she can be made to change her mind even here at the 
 last minute. But that means I must see her; or, rather, 
 that she must see me." 
 
 Hawkins paused in the twisting of his felt hat to 
 raise bewildered eyes. 
 
 "I've got the car here," he said. "I'll take you 
 down." 
 
 "The car!" exclaimed John Bruce quickly. "Yes, 
 I never thought of that! Listen, Hawkins! Claire 
 refused to see me this afternoon, or even to talk to 
 me over the telephone. I am not quite sure why. But 
 no matter what her reason was, I must see her now at 
 once. I have something to tell her that I hope will 
 persuade her not to go on with this to-morrow morn- 
 ing or ever." His voice was growing grave and 
 hard. "I hope you understand, Hawkins. I believe 
 it may succeed. If it fails, then neither you nor I, nor 
 any soul on earth can alter her decision. That's all 
 that I can tell you now." 
 
 Hawkins nodded his head. A little color, eager- 
 ness, hope, had come into his face. 
 
 "That's enough," he said tremulously, "as long as 
 you you think there is a chance even yet. And and 
 you do, don't you?" 
 
 "Yes," said John Bruce, "I think there is more than 
 a chance if I can see her alone and make her listen 
 to me. The car will be just the thing. But she would 
 refuse to come out, if she knew I were in it. I depend 
 on you for that. We'll drive down there, and you will
 
 THE LAST CHANCE 253 
 
 have to make some excuse to get her to come with you. 
 After that you can keep on driving us around the 
 block until I either win or lose." 
 
 Hawkins rose hurriedly to his feet. 
 
 "Let us go, John Bruce! For God's sake, let us 
 go !" he cried eagerly. "I'll I'll tell her Mrs. Hedges 
 that's my landlady has got to see her at once. 
 She'll come quick enough." 
 
 John Bruce put on his hat and coat, and without a 
 word led the way to the door but at the door he 
 paused for an instant. There was Larmon and 
 Crang was back. And then he shook his head in quick 
 decision. There was time enough later. It would 
 serve no purpose to tell Larmon now, other than the 
 thankless one of giving Larmon a restless night. 
 
 John Bruce went on. He did not speak again until, 
 outside the hotel, he stepped into the traveling pawn- 
 shop as Hawkins opened the car door for him. 
 
 "You will have to make sure that Crang has gone," 
 he said quietly. "Don't stop in front of the house, 
 Hawkins." 
 
 "I'll make sure," whispered Hawkins, as he climbed 
 to his seat. "Oh, my God, my little girl!" 
 
 The old car jolted forward. John Bruce's face was 
 set again in hard, chiselled lines. He tried to think 
 but now his brain seemed curiously impotent, as though 
 it groped through chaos and through turmoil only to 
 stagger back bewildered, defeated, a wounded thing. 
 And for a time it was like that, as he sat there sway- 
 ing with the lurch of the speeding car, one thought 
 impinging fast upon another only to be swallowed up 
 so quickly in turn by still another that he could correlate 
 no one of them.
 
 254 PAWNED 
 
 And then, after a little time again, out of this strange 
 mental strife images began to take form, as sharply 
 defined and distinct one from the other as before they 
 had been mingled in hopeless confusion and he cried 
 out aloud in sudden agony of soul. It was to save his 
 life that this had happened. He had wrung that knowl- 
 edge from Crang. That was the lever he meant to 
 use with Claire now, and it must succeed. He must 
 make it succeed! It seemed to drive him mad now, 
 that thought that to-morrow morning she should die 
 for him. Not physical death worse than that ! God ! 
 It was unthinkable, horrible, abominable. It seemed 
 to flaunt and mock with ruthless, hell-born sacrilege 
 what was holiest in his heart. It stirred him to a fury 
 that brought him to his feet, his fists clenched. Claire 
 in her purity at the mercy of a degenerate beast ! 
 
 He dropped back on the seat. He battled for calm- 
 ness. In a little while Claire would be here beside 
 him for a little while. He shook his head. This was 
 not real, nothing of his life had been real since that 
 moon-mad night on the sands of Apia. No; that was 
 not true ! Soul, mind and body rose up in fierce denial. 
 His love was real, a living, breathing, actual reality. 
 Claire 
 
 John Bruce sank his face in his hands. Hours 
 seemed to pass. And then he was conscious that the 
 car had stopped. He roused himself, and drawing the 
 window curtain slightly, looked out. Hawkins had 
 stopped a few houses down past the one-time pawn- 
 shop. 
 
 John Bruc^ rose suddenly and changed his seat to 
 the one in the far opposite corner, his back to the 
 front of the car. The time seemed interminable. Then
 
 THE LAST CHANCE 255 
 
 he heard a light footstep ring on the pavement, and he 
 heard Hawkins' voice. The car door was opened, a 
 dark form entered, sat down, *he door closed, and the 
 car started forward. 
 
 It was strange I It was like that, here in this car, 
 that he had stepped in one night and found Claire 
 as she would now find him. That was so long ago ! 
 And it seemed so long too since even he had last seen 
 her since that night when, piqued so unwarrantably, 
 he had left Paul Veniza's house. He felt his hands 
 tremble. He steadied himself. He did not want to 
 frighten or startle her now. 
 
 "Claire!" he said softly. 
 
 He heard a slight, quick rustle of garments and 
 then the light in the car was flashed on. 
 
 She was leaning tensely forward, a little figure with 
 loose cloak flung over her shoulders, without hat, a 
 wondrous sheen from the light on the dark, silken hair, 
 her eyes wide, her finger still on the electric-light 
 button. 
 
 "You!" she cried sharply. "And Hawkins, too, in 
 this!" 
 
 She reached for the door handle; but John Bruce 
 caught her hand. 
 
 "Claire!" he pleaded hoarsely. "Wait! If it is a 
 trick, at least you know that with Hawkins and me 
 you will come to no harm. What else could I do? 
 You would not speak to me this afternoon, you would 
 not let me see you, and I must talk to you to-night." 
 
 She leoked at him steadily. 
 
 "Must?" she" repeated coldly. "And to-night? Why 
 to-night?" 
 
 "Because," John Bruce answered quickly, "to-mor-
 
 256 PAWNED 
 
 row would be too late. I know about to-morrow morn- 
 ing. Hawkins told me. He was outside the door of 
 that room when Crang was talking to you to-night." 
 
 She sank back in her seat with a little cry. Her face 
 had gone white but again she steadied herself. 
 
 "And and do you think that is any reason why you 
 should have inveigled me into this car?" she asked 
 dully. "Do you think that anything you can say will 
 alter to-morrow morning?" 
 
 "Yes; I do!" said John Bruce earnestly. "But" 
 he smiled a little bitterly "I am afraid, too, that it 
 will be hopeless enough if first you will not tell me 
 what has so suddenly come between us. Claire, what 
 is it?" 
 
 The dark eyes lighted with a glint, half angry, half 
 ironical. 
 
 "Is that what you brought me here for?" 
 
 "No," he said quietly. 
 
 "Then," she said coolly, "if you do not know, I will 
 tell you. I read a letter that you wrote to a certain 
 Mr. Larmon." 
 
 It was a long minute before he spoke. 
 
 "I I thought it might be that," he said slowly. "I 
 knew you had seen it. Crang told me so. And and 
 I was afraid you might believe it Claire." 
 
 "Believe it!" she returned monotonously. "Had I 
 any choice? Have I any now? I knew you were in 
 danger. I knew it was written to save your life. I 
 knew it was your handwriting. I knew you wrote it." 
 She turned away her head. "It was so miserable a lie, 
 so cowardly a betrayal to save your life." 
 
 "But so hard to believe, and so bitter a thing to 
 believe" there was a sudden eager thrill in John
 
 THE LAST CHANCE 257 
 
 Bruce's voice "that you wept upon it. Look, Claire 1" 
 he cried. "I have that letter here and this, that 
 I took from Crang to-day when I turned the tables on 
 him. See! Read them both!" He took from his 
 pocket the letter and the slip cut from the bottom of 
 the sheet, and laid them in her lap. "The bottom was 
 written in invisible ink the way I always communi- 
 cated privately with Larmon. Salt brings it out. I 
 knew Larmon would subject it to the test, so I was 
 willing to write anything that Crang dictated. I wrote 
 that secret message on the bottom of the paper while 
 Crang was out of the room where he had me a prisoner. 
 Oh, don't you see now, Claire? When your tears fell 
 on the paper faint traces of the secret writing began 
 to appear. That gave Crang the clew, and he worked 
 at it until he had brought out the message, and then he 
 cut off the bottom before delivering the letter to Lar- 
 mon, and " 
 
 John Bruce stopped. Claire's face was buried in the 
 cushions, and, huddled in the corner of the car, she 
 was sobbing bitterly. 
 
 "Don't ! Don't cry, Claire !" John Bruce whispered, 
 and laid his hand over hers where it crushed the letter 
 in her lap. 
 
 "I believed it," she said. "I did you that wrong. 
 There is no forgiveness for such meanness of soul as 
 that." 
 
 "No," John Bruce answered gently, "there is no for- 
 giveness because there is nothing to forgive. It was 
 only another piece of that miserable hound's cunning 
 that tricked us both. I did not appreciate what he was 
 after in that reference to you; I thought he was only 
 trying to make the letter bullet-proof in its plausibility
 
 258 PAWNED 
 
 for Larmon's benefit I never thought that he would 
 show it to you." 
 
 She had not drawn her hand away, but her face was 
 still hidden; and for a moment there was silence be- 
 tween them. 
 
 "Claire," John Bruce said in a low voice, "the night 
 I left your house you said that, rather than regretting 
 your promise to marry Crang, you had come to be glad 
 you had made it. Can you still say that?" 
 
 She lifted her face now, tear-stained, the brown eyes 
 strangely radiant through the wet lashes. 
 
 "Yes," she said. "I am glad. So glad because I 
 know now that it was worth it all so many, many times 
 
 over." 
 
 "Claire" his voice was lower still "I left your 
 house that night, angry, jealous, misjudging you be- 
 cause you had said that. You asked for forgiveness a 
 minute ago when there was nothing to forgive ; I asked 
 for forgiveness from you after that night, but even then 
 I did not know how far beyond the right to forgiveness 
 I had gone." 
 
 She stared at him in a startled way. 
 
 "What what do you mean?" she breathed. 
 
 And now John Bruce's face was alight. 
 
 "You have confessed your love, Claire I" he cried 
 passionately. "It was not fair, perhaps, but I am past 
 all that now and you would not have confessed it in 
 any other way. Glad! I was a stranger that night 
 when you bought my life and to-night you are glad, 
 not because my life is now or ever could be worth such 
 a sacrifice as yours, but because love has come to make 
 you think so, sweetheart, and you care you care for 
 me."
 
 THE LAST CHANCE 259 
 
 "You know!" Her face was deathly white. "You 
 know about about that night?" she faltered. 
 
 John Bruce had both her hands imprisoned now. 
 
 "Yes; I know!" He laughed with a strange buoy- 
 ancy; passion, triumph, were vibrant in his voice. "Did 
 Crang not tell you how near to death he came to-day? 
 I choked the truth out of him. Yes ; I know I I know 
 that it was to save my life you made that promise, that 
 you sold everything you held dear in life for me but 
 it is over now!" 
 
 He was beside' her. He raised her two hands to 
 draw her arms around his neck. 
 
 She struggled back. 
 
 "No, no!" she cried wildly. "Oh, you must not 
 you must not!" 
 
 "Must not!" His voice rang his challenge to the 
 world. The blood was pounding in mad abandon 
 through his veins. His soul itself seemed aflame. 
 Closer, closer he drew her to him. "Must not! There 
 is only you and me and our love on all the earth!" 
 
 But still she struggled and then suddenly the tears 
 came. 
 
 "Oh, you are so strong so strong," she sobbed 
 and like some weary child finding rest her head dropped 
 upon his shoulder and lay hidden there. 
 
 "Claire ! Claire I" It was his soul that spoke. 
 
 He kissed the silken hair, and fondled it; and kissed 
 the tear-wet eyes; and his cheek lay against hers; and 
 she was in his arms, and he held her there tight- 
 clasped so that she might never go again. 
 
 And after a time she sobbed no more ; and her hand, 
 lifting, found his face and touched it gently, and creep- 
 ing upward, brushed the hair back from his forehead
 
 260 PAWNED 
 
 and then suddenly she clung to him with all her strength 
 and drew his head down until her lips met his. 
 
 And there was no world about them, and time was 
 non-existent, and only they two lived. 
 
 It was Claire at last who put his arms from her in a 
 wistful, lingering way. 
 
 "We have been mad for a little while," she whis- 
 pered. "Take me back home now, John and and 
 you must never try to see me again." 
 
 And something seemed to grow chill and cold within 
 John Bruce's heart. 
 
 "Not that, Claire !" he cried out. "You do not mean 
 that that, after this, you will go on with with to- 
 morrow morning!" 
 
 A brave little effort at a smile quivered on her lips. 
 
 "We have had our hour, John," she said; "yours 
 and mine. It can never be taken from us, and I shall 
 live in it all my life; but it is over now. Yes; I shall 
 go through with it to-morrow morning. There is no 
 other way. I must keep my promise." 
 
 "No!" he cried out again. "It shall never be! 
 Claire, you cannot mean what you are saying! A 
 promise like that ! It was forced upon you inhumanly, 
 horribly. He would have murdered me." 
 
 "But to-night you are alive," she answered quietly. 
 
 "Alive! Yes!" he said fiercely. "I am alive, 
 and " 
 
 "It is because you are alive that I promised," she 
 broke in gently. "He kept his word. I cannot break 
 mine." 
 
 "Alive !" John Bruce laughed now in sudden, bitter 
 agony. "Alive yes! And do you think that I can 
 walk about the streets, and talk, and smile, and suck
 
 THE LAST CHANCE 261 
 
 the honey out of life, while you have paid for it with a 
 tortured soul? Claire, you shall not! That man 
 is No, wait! There is myself. He called me a 
 
 snivelling hypocrite. You shall know the worst of me 
 before you know the worst of him. There is not much 
 to tell because he has told you. I am a gambler. 
 All my life I've gambled. As far back as I can re- 
 member I've been a rolling stone. My life has been 
 useless, utterly worthless. But I was never ashamed 
 of it; I never saw any reason to be ashamed until you 
 came into my life. It hasn't been the same since then 
 and it will never be the same again. You have given 
 me something to live for now, Claire." 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "You do not argue well," she said softly. "If I have 
 brought this to- you, John, I am so glad so glad for 
 this, too. Oh, I cannot tell you how glad I am, for, 
 because I loved you, the knowledge of what your life 
 was hurt me. But I had faith in you, John, as I always 
 shall have. So don't you see" the brave little smile 
 came again "that this is a reward, something tangible 
 and great, to make still more worth while the promise 
 that I made?" 
 
 He stared at her. He swept his hand across his 
 eyes. She seemed she seemed to be slipping away 
 from him beyond beyond his reach. 
 
 "That man!" he said desperately. "You said you 
 knew him but you do not know him. He is the head 
 and front and brains of a gang of crooks. I know! 
 He held me a prisoner in their dirty lair, a hidden place, 
 a cellar over in the slums like rats they were. He is 
 a criminal, and a dangerous one while he masquer- 
 ades with his medicine. God alone knows the crimes,
 
 262 PAWNED 
 
 if there are any, that he has not committed. He is a 
 foul, unclean and filthy thing, debauched and dissolute, 
 a moral leper. Claire, do you understand all this 
 that his life is pollution and defilement, that love to 
 him is lust, that your innocence " 
 
 With a broken, piteous cry, Claire stopped him. 
 
 And again he stared at her. She did not speak, but 
 in her eyes he read the torment of a far greater and 
 fuller appreciation of the price than he, he knew, 
 though it turned his soul sick within him, could ever 
 have. 
 
 And suddenly he covered his face with his hands. 
 
 "Bought I" he said brokenly in his agony. "Oh, my 
 God, this has bought me!" 
 
 He felt his hands drawn away, and her two palms 
 laid upon his cheeks. He looked at her. How white 
 she was! 
 
 "Help me, John," she said steadily. "Don't don't 
 make it harder." 
 
 She reached out and touched the bell button beside 
 the seat. In a subconscious way he remembered that 
 was the signal for Hawkins to bring the traveling 
 pawn-shop to the end of its circuit around the block in 
 its old-time trips to Persia. He made no effort to stop 
 her. There was something of ultimate finality in her 
 face and eyes that answered, before it was uttered, the 
 question that stumbled on his lips. 
 
 "Claire! Claire!" he pleaded wildly. "Will noth- 
 ing change you?" 
 
 "There is no other way," she said. 
 
 He stretched out his arms to draw her to him again, 
 to lay her head once more upon his shoulder but now 
 she held him back.
 
 THE LAST CHANCE 263 
 
 "No I" she whispered. "Be merciful nowy John 
 my strength is almost gone." 
 
 And there was something in her voice that held him 
 from the act. 
 
 The car stopped. 
 
 And then, as the door was opened and she stood up, 
 suddenly she leaned swiftly forward and pressed her 
 lips to his and springing from the car, was gone. 
 
 John Bruce groped his way out of the car. Across 
 the sidewalk the door of Paul Veniza's house closed. 
 Hawkins, standing by the car door, clutched at his 
 arm. And Hawkins' hand was trembling violently. 
 Slowly his eyes met Hawkins'. 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 The old lined face seemed to gray even in the murky 
 light of a distant street lamp. 
 
 "I'd rather see her dead," said the old cab driver 
 brokenly. 
 
 John Bruce made no answer. 
 
 Then Hawkins, gulping his words, spoke again : 
 
 "I where'llldriveyou?" 
 
 John Bruce started blindly on past Hawkins down 
 the street. 
 
 "Nowhere," he said.
 
 XXII 
 
 THROUGH THE NIGHT 
 
 A GAUNT and haggard figure stalked through 
 the night; around him only shuttered windows, 
 darkened houses, and deserted streets. The 
 pavements rang hollow to the impact of his boot-heels. 
 Where the way lay open he went. But always he 
 walked, walked incessantly, without pause, hurrying 
 nowhere. 
 
 There was a raw, biting chill in the air, and his 
 hands, ungloved, as they swung at his sides, were blue 
 with cold. But sweat in great beads stood out upon 
 his forehead. At times his lips moved and he spoke 
 aloud. It was a hoarse sound. 
 
 "Or him!" he said. "Or him!" 
 
 On! Always on! There was no rest. It was 
 ceaseless. The gray came into the East. 
 
 And then at last the figure halted. 
 
 There was a large window with wire grating, and a 
 light burned within. In the window was a plate mirror, 
 and a time-piece. It was a jeweler's window. 
 
 The man looked at the time-piece. It was five 
 o'clock. He looked at the mirror. It reflected the 
 face of a young man grown old. The eyes burned 
 deep in their sockets; the lines were hard, without soft- 
 ness ; the skin was tightly drawn across the cheek bones, 
 and was colorless. And he stared at the face, stared 
 
 264
 
 THROUGH THE NIGHT 265 
 
 for a time without recognition. And then as he smiled 
 and the face in the mirror smiled with him in a dis- 
 torted movement of the lips, he swept his hand across 
 his eyes. 
 
 "John Bruce," he said. 
 
 It seemed to arouse him from some mental absorp- 
 tion in which his physical entity had been lost. It was 
 five o'clock, and he was John Bruce. At eleven o'clock 
 or was it twelve? last night he had left Hawkins 
 standing by the door of the traveling pawn-shop, and 
 since then 
 
 He stared around him. He was somewhere down- 
 town. He did not know where. He began to walk in 
 an uptown direction. 
 
 Something had been born in those hours. Some- 
 thing cataclysmic. What was it? 
 
 "Or him!" The words came again aloud with- 
 out apparent volition. 
 
 What did that mean? It had something to do with 
 Hawkins ; with what Hawkins had said, standing there 
 by the traveling pawn-shop. What was it Hawkins had 
 said? Yes; he remembered: "I'd rather see her 
 dead." 
 
 "Or him!" 
 
 With cold judicial precision now the hours unrolled 
 themselves before him. 
 
 "Or him!" 
 
 He was going to kill Crang. 
 
 The hours of mental strife, of torment through 
 which he had just passed, were as the memory of some 
 rack upon which his soul had been put to torture. They 
 came back vividly now, those hours every minute of 
 them a living eternity. His soul had shrunk back
 
 266 PAWNED 
 
 aghast at first, and called it murder; but it was not 
 murder, or, if it was, it was imperative. It was the 
 life of a foul viper or Claire's. It was the life of an 
 unclean thing that mocked and desecrated all decency, 
 that flung its sordid challenge at every law, both hu- 
 man and divine or the life of a pure, clean soul made 
 the plaything of this beast, and dragged into a mire 
 of unutterable abomination to suffocate and strangle in 
 its noxious surroundings and die. 
 
 And that soul was in jeopardy because at this mo- 
 ment he, John Bruce, had the power of movement in 
 his limbs, the sense of sight, the ability to stretch out 
 his hand and feel it touch that lamp-post there, and, if 
 he would, to speak aloud and designate that object for 
 what it was a lamp-post. She had bought him these 
 things with her life. Should she die and he live? 
 
 And he remembered back through those hours since 
 midnight, when his soul had still faltered before the 
 taking of human life, how it had sought some other 
 way, some alternative, any alternative. A jail sentence 
 for Crang. There was enough, more than enough now 
 with the evidence of Crang's double life, to convict the 
 man for the robbery of that safe. But Claire had an- 
 swered that in the long ago: "I will marry him when 
 he comes out." Or, then, to get Crang away again 
 like this afternoon no, yesterday afternoon. It was 
 this morning, in a few hours, that they were to be mar- 
 ried. There was no time left in which to attempt any- 
 thing like that; but, even if there were, he knew now, 
 that it but postponed the day of reckoning. Claire 
 would wait. Crang would come back. 
 
 He was going to kill Crang. 
 
 If he didn't, Crang would kill him. He knew that,
 
 THROUGH THE NIGHT 267 
 
 too. But his decision was not actuated, or even swayed, 
 by any consideration of self-preservation. He had no 
 thought of his future or his safety. That was already 
 settled. With his decision was irrevocably coupled the 
 forfeiting of his own life. Not his own life! It be- 
 longed to Glaire. Claire had bought it. He was only 
 giving it back that the abysmal price she had agreed to 
 pay should not be extorted from her. Once he had 
 accomplished his purpose, he would give himself up to 
 the police. 
 
 He was going to kill Crang. 
 
 That was what had been born out of the travail of 
 those hours of the night. But there were other things 
 to do first. He walked briskly now. The decision 
 in itself no longer occupied his thoughts. The decision 
 was absolute; it was final. It was those "other things" 
 that he must consider now. There was Larmon. He 
 could not tell Larmon what he, John Bruce, was going 
 to do, but he must warn Larmon to be on his guard 
 against any past or present connection with John Bruce 
 coming to light. Fortunately Larmon had come to 
 New York and registered as Peters. He must make 
 Larmon understand that Larmon and John Bruce had 
 never met, even if he could not give Larmon any spe- 
 cific reason or explanation. Larmon would probably 
 refuse at first, and attribute it as an attempt to break, 
 for some ulterior reason, the bond they had signed 
 together that night on the beach at Apia. 
 
 John Bruce smiled gravely. The bond would be 
 broken in any case. Faustus was at the end of the play. 
 A few months in prison, the electric chair how apt 
 had been his whistling of that aria in his youth!
 
 268 PAWNED 
 
 Youth! Yes, he was old now; he had been young that 
 night on the beach at Apia. 
 
 He took off his hat and let the sharp air sweep his 
 head. He was not thinking clearly. All this did not 
 express what he meant. There was Larmon's safety. 
 He must take care of that; see to it, first of all, that 
 Larmon could not be implicated, held by law as an 
 accomplice through foreknowledge of what was to 
 happen; then, almost of as great importance for 
 Larmon's sake and future, the intimacy between them, 
 their business relations of the past, must never be sub- 
 jected to the probe of the trial that was to come. 
 
 John Bruce nodded his head sharply. Yes, that was 
 better I But there was still something else that bond. 
 He knew to-night, even if prison walls and a death 
 penalty were not about to nullify that bond far more 
 effectively than either he or Larmon ever could, that 
 the one thing he wanted now, while yet he was a free 
 agent, while yet it was not arbitrarily his choice, was 
 to cancel that agreement which was so typical of what 
 his life up to the present time had always stood for; 
 and in its cancellation, for what little time was left, 
 to have it typify, instead, a finer manhood. The future, 
 premonitive, grim in its promise, seemed to hold up 
 before him as in a mirror where no lines were softened, 
 where only the blunt, brutal truth was reflected, the 
 waste and worthlessness of the past. He had no wish 
 to evade it, or temporize with it, or seek to palliate it. 
 He knew only a vain and bitter regret; knew only the 
 desire now at the end, in so far as he could, to face 
 death a changed man. 
 
 He walked on and on. He was getting into the 
 uptown section now. How many miles he must have
 
 THROUGH THE NIGHT 269 
 
 covered since he had left Hawkins, and since the door 
 of the one-time pawn-shop had closed on that little 
 bare-headed figure with the loose cloak clutched about 
 her throat the last sight he had had of Claire ! How 
 many miles? He did not know. It must have been 
 many, very many. But he felt no weariness. It was 
 strange! It was as though his vitality and energy 
 flowed into him from some wholly extraneous source; 
 and as though physically he were non-existent. 
 
 He wondered what Larmon would say. Larmon 
 alone had the right to cancel the bond. That was the 
 way it had been written. Would Larmon refuse? He 
 hoped not, because he wanted to part with Larmon as 
 a friend. He hoped not, though in the final analysis, 
 in a practical way, Larmon's refusal must be so futile 
 a thing. Would Larmon laugh at him, and, not know- 
 ing, call him a fool? He shook his head. He did not 
 know. At least Larmon would not be surprised. The 
 conversation of last evening 
 
 John Bruce looked up. He was at the entrance to 
 the Bayne-Miloy Hotel. He entered, nodded mechani- 
 cally to the night clerk, stepped into the elevator, and 
 went up to his room. There was his revolver to be 
 got. Afterward he would go down to Larmon's room. 
 Somehow, even in the face of that other thing which 
 he was to do, this interview which was to come with 
 Larmon obsessed him. It seemed to signify some vital 
 line of demarcation between the old life and the new. 
 
 The new! He smiled grimly, without mirth, as, 
 entering his room, he switched on the light, stepped 
 quickly to his desk, pulled open a drawer, and took out 
 his revolver. The new! There would be very little 
 of the new! He laughed now in a low, raucous way,
 
 270 PAWNED 
 
 as he slipped the weapon into his pocket. The new I 
 A few weeks, a few months of a prison cell, and 
 then His laugh died away, and a half startled, 
 
 half perplexed look settled on his face. For the first 
 time he noticed that a letter, most obviously placed to 
 attract his attention, lay on the center of the desk pad. 
 Strange, he had not seen it instantly 1 
 
 He stared at it now. It was a plain envelope, 
 unstamped, and addressed to him. The writing was 
 familiar too ! Larmon's ! He picked it up, opened it 
 and from the folds of the letter, as he drew it from 
 the envelope, four torn pieces of paper fluttered to the 
 desk. And for a long time, in a dazed way, he gazed 
 at them. The letter dropped from his hand. Then 
 mechanically he pieced the four scraps together. It 
 was one of the leaves torn from Larmon's notebook 
 that night in Apia and here was the heavy scrawl 
 where he, John Bruce, had signed with the quill tooth- 
 pick. It was Larmon's copy of the bond. 
 
 And again for a long time he stared at it, then he 
 picked up the letter again. He read it slowly, for 
 somehow his brain seemed only able to absorb the 
 words in a stunned way. Then he read it again : 
 
 Dear Bruce: n P. M. 
 
 Something has come into your life that was not there on a 
 night you will remember in the Southern Seas, and I know of 
 no other way to repay you for what you did for me to-day than 
 to hand you this. I knew from what you said to-night, or, 
 rather perhaps, from what you did not say, that this was in 
 your heart. And if I were young again, and the love of a 
 good woman had come to me, I too should try and fail, I 
 fear, where you will succeed to play a man's part in life. 
 
 And so I bid you good-by, for when you read this I shall be
 
 THROUGH THE NIGHT 271 
 
 on my way back West. What I lose another will gain. 
 Amongst even my friends are men of honorable callings and 
 wide interests who need a John Bruce. You will hear from 
 one of them. Godspeed to you, for you are too good and 
 dean a man to end your days as I shall end mine a gambler. 
 
 Yours, 
 GILBERT LARMON. 
 
 The love of a good woman and young again ! 
 John Bruce's face was white. A thousand conflicting 
 emotions seemed to surge upon him. There was some- 
 thing fine and big in what Larmon had done, like the 
 Larmon whose real self he had come to glimpse for 
 the first time last night; and something that was almost 
 ghastly in the unconscious irony that lay behind it all. 
 And for a little while he stood there motionless, hold- 
 ing the letter in his hand; then with a quick, abrupt 
 return to action, he began to tear the letter into little 
 shreds, and from his pocket he took his own copy of 
 the bond and tore that up, and the four pieces of 
 Larmon's copy he tore into still smaller fragments, 
 and gathering all these up in his hands, he walked to 
 the window and let them flutter out into the night. 
 
 The way was clear. There was nothing to connect 
 Gilbert Larmon with the man who to-morrow no, 
 to-day would be in the hands of the police charged 
 with murder. Nothing to bring to light Larmon's 
 private affairs, for nothing bearing Larmon's signature 
 had ever been kept; it was always destroyed. Larmon 
 was safe for, at least, they could never make John 
 Bruce talk. 
 
 There was a strange relief upon him, a strange 
 uplift; not only for Larmon's sake, but for his own. 
 The link that had bound him to the past was gone,
 
 272 PAWNED 
 
 broken, dissolved. He stood free for the little time 
 that was left; he stood free to make a fresh start in 
 the narrow confines of a prison cell. He smiled grimly. 
 There was no irony here where it seemed all of irony. 
 It meant everything all. It was the only atonement 
 he could make. 
 
 He switched off the light, left his room, and went 
 down to the desk. Here he consulted the directory. 
 He requested the clerk to procure a taxi for him. 
 
 It was five minutes after six by the clock over the 
 desk. 
 
 He entered the taxi and gave the chauffeur the 
 address. He was unconscious of emotion now. He 
 knew only a cold, fixed, merciless purpose. 
 
 He was going to kill Crang. 
 
 The taxi stopped in front of a frame house that 
 bore a dirty brass name-plate. He dismissed the taxi, 
 and mounted the steps. His right hand was in the 
 pocket of his coat. He rang the bell, and obtaining no 
 response, rang again and after that insistently. 
 
 The door was finally opened by an old woman, evi- 
 dently aroused from bed, for she clutched tightly at a 
 dressing gown that was flung around her shoulders. 
 
 "I want to see Doctor Crang," said John Bruce. 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "The doctor isn't in," she answered. 
 
 "I will wait for him," said John Bruce. 
 
 Again she shook her head. 
 
 "I don't know when he will be back. He hasn't been 
 here since yesterday morning." 
 
 "I will wait for him," said John Bruce monoto- 
 nously. 
 
 "But "
 
 THROUGH THE NIGHT 273 
 
 John Bruce brushed his way past her into the hall. 
 
 "I will wait for him," he repeated. 
 
 A door was open off the hallway. John Bruce 
 looked in. It was obviously Crang's office. He went 
 in and sat down by the window. 
 
 The woman stood for a long time in the doorway 
 watching him. Finally she went away. 
 
 John Bruce's mind was coldly logical. Crang was 
 not aware that his escape was known to any one except 
 Claire, and he had been cunning enough to keep under 
 cover. That was why he had not been home. But he 
 would be home before he went out to be married. 
 Even a man like Crang would have a few preparations 
 to make. 
 
 John Bruce sat by the window. Occasionally the old 
 woman came and stood in the doorway and went 
 away again. 
 
 There was no sign of Crang. 
 
 At fifteen minutes of eight John Bruce rose from 
 his chair and left the house. 
 
 "He was to be at Paul Veniza's at eight," said Tohn 
 Bruce to himself with cool precision.
 
 XXIII 
 
 THE BEST MAN 
 
 HAWKINS sat at the table in his room, and 
 twined and twined one old storm-beaten hand 
 over the other. For hours he had sat like 
 that. It was light in the oom now, for it was long 
 after seven o'clock. His bed had not been slept in. 
 He was dressed in his shiny best suit; he wore his 
 frayed black cravat. He had been dressed like that 
 since midnight; since he had returned home after Claire 
 had fled into her house, and John Bruce had strode 
 by him on the sidewalk with set, stony face and unsee- 
 ing eyes ; since, on reaching his room here, he had found 
 a note whose signature was false because it read "Paul 
 Veniza," when he knew that it came from Crang. 
 Crang was taking precautions that his return should 
 net leak out! The note only corroborated what he 
 had heard through the door. He was to be at Paul 
 Veniza's at eight o'clock with the traveling pawn-shop. 
 The note had said nothing about any marriage ; but, 
 then, he knew! He was to be the best man. And so 
 he had dressed himself. After that he had waited. 
 He was waiting now. 
 
 "The first," said Hawkins, with grave confidence to 
 the cracked mirror. "Yes, that's it the first in line, 
 because I am her old father, and there ain't nothing 
 can change that." 
 
 274
 
 THE BEST MAN 275 
 
 His own voice seemed to arouse him. He stared 
 around the shabby room that was his home, his eyes 
 lingering with strange wistfulness on each old battered, 
 and long familiar object and then suddenly, with a 
 choking cry, his head went down, buried in his arms 
 outflung across the table. 
 
 "Pawned!" the old man cried brokenly. "It's 
 twenty years ago, I pawned her twenty years ago. 
 And it's come to this because because I ain't never 
 redeemed her but, oh God, I love her I love my 
 little girl and and she ain't never going to know 
 how much." 
 
 His voice died away. In its place the asthmatic gas- 
 jet spat venomous defiance at the daylight that was 
 so contumaciously deriding its puny flame. 
 
 And after a little while, Hawkins raised his head. 
 He looked at his watch. 
 
 "It's time to go," said Hawkins and cleared his 
 throat. 
 
 Hawkins picked up his hat and brushed it carefully 
 with his coat sleeve; his shoulders, and such of his 
 attire as he could reach, he brushed with his hands; 
 he readjusted his frayed black cravat before the 
 cracked mirror. 
 
 "I'm the best man," said Hawkins. 
 
 Oblivious to the chattering gas-jet, he descended the 
 stairs, and went out to the shed in the rear that housed 
 the traveling pawn-shop. 
 
 "The first in line," said the old cab driver, as he 
 climbed into the seat. 
 
 Five minutes later, he drew up in front of the one- 
 time pawn-shop. He consulted his watch as he got
 
 276 PAWNED 
 
 down from his scat and entered the house. It was 
 twenty-five minutes of eight. 
 
 He twisted his hat awkwardly in his hands, as he 
 entered the rear room. He felt a sudden, wild rush 
 of hope spring up within him because there was no sign 
 of Crang. And then the hope died. He was early; 
 and, besides, Claire had her hat on and was dressed 
 to go out. Paul Veniza, also dressed, lay on the cot. 
 
 No one spoke. 
 
 Then Paul Veniza's frame was racked with a fit of 
 coughing, and out of a face ashen in pallor his eyes 
 met Hawkins' in silent agony and then he turned his 
 head away. 
 
 Hawkins twisted at his hat. 
 
 "I came a little early," he said wistfully, "because I 
 thought mabbe you might that mabbe there might be 
 some change that mabbe you might not " 
 
 He stopped. He was looking at Claire. Her face 
 was very white too. Her smile seemed to cut at his 
 heart like a knife. 
 
 "No, Hawkins," she said in a low voice; "there is 
 no change. We are going to Staten Island. You will 
 drive Doctor Crang. There is a limousine coming for 
 father and me, that will be more comfortable for 
 father." 
 
 Hawkins' eyes went to the floor. 
 
 "I I didn't mean that kind of a change," he said. 
 
 "I know you didn't, Hawkins. But but I am try- 
 ing to be practical." Her voice broke a little in spite 
 of herself. "Doctor Crang doesn't know that you 
 overheard anything last night, or that you know any- 
 thing about the arrangements, so so I am explaining 
 them to you now."
 
 THE BEST MAN 277 
 
 Hawkins' eyes were still on the floor. 
 
 "Ain't there nothing" his voice was thick and 
 husky "ain't there nothing in all the world that any 
 of us can do to make you change your mind? Claire, 
 ain't there nothing, nothing at all? John Bruce said 
 there wasn't, and you love John Bruce, but " 
 
 "Don't, Hawkins!" she cried out pitifully. 
 
 The old shoulders came slowly up, and the old head ; 
 and the old blue eyes were of a sudden strangely flint- 
 like. 
 
 "I've got to know," said Hawkins, in a dead, stub- 
 born way. 
 
 "There is nothing," she answered. 
 
 Hawkins' eyes reverted to the floor. He spoke now 
 without lifting them. 
 
 "Then then it's it's like saying good-by," he said, 
 and the broken note was back again in his voice. "It's 
 it's so many years that mabbe you've forgotten, but 
 when you were a little girl, and before you grew up, 
 and and were too big for that, I I used to hold you 
 in my arms, and you used to put your little arnis around 
 my neck, and kiss me, and and you used to say that 
 Hawkins would never let the bugaboos get you, and 
 and I wonder if if " 
 
 "Oh, Hawkins!" Claire's eyes were full of tears. 
 "I remember. Dear, dear Hawkins ! And I used to 
 call you Daddy Hawkins. Do you remember?" 
 
 A tear found a furrow and trickled down the old 
 weather-b eaten face unchecked, as Hawkins raised his 
 head. 
 
 "Claire! Claire!" His voice trembled in its yearn- 
 ing. "Will will you say that again, Claire?" 
 
 "Dear Daddy Hawkins," she whispered.
 
 278 PAWNED 
 
 His arms stretched out to her, and she came to them 
 smiling through her tears. 
 
 "You've been so good to me," she whispered again. 
 "You are so good to me dear, dear Daddy Haw- 
 kins." 
 
 A wondrous light was in the old cabman's face. He 
 held the slight form to him, trying to be so tenderly 
 careful that he should not hurt her in his strength. 
 He kissed her, and patted her head, and his fingers 
 lingered as they smoothed the hair back from where it 
 made a tiny curl about her ear. 
 
 And then he felt her drawing him toward the couch 
 and he became conscious that Paul Veniza was hold- 
 ing out his hands to them both. 
 
 And Claire knelt at the side of the couch and took 
 one of Paul Veniza's hands, and Hawkins took the 
 other. And no one of them looked into the other's 
 face. 
 
 The outer door opened, and Doctor Crang came in. 
 He stood for an instant surveying the scene, a half 
 angry, half sarcastic smile spreading over his sallow 
 face, and then he shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "Ah, you're here, like me, ahead of time, Hawkins, 
 I see!" he said shortly. "You're going to drive me 
 to Staten Island where " 
 
 Claire rose to her feet. 
 
 "I have told Hawkins," she said quietly. 
 
 Hawkins' hand tightened over Paul Veniza's for a 
 moment, and then he turned away. 
 
 "I I'll wait outside," said Hawkins and brushed 
 has hand across his eyes as he went through the door- 
 way. 
 
 Paul Veniza was racked with a sudden fit of cough-
 
 THE BEST MAN 279 
 
 ing again. Doctor Crang walked quickly to the couch 
 and looked at the other sharply. After a moment he 
 turned to Claire. 
 
 "Are you ready to go?" he asked crisply. 
 
 "Yes; I am ready," she answered steadily. 
 
 "Very well, then," said Crang, "you had better go 
 out and get into the old bus. You can go with Hawkins 
 and me." 
 
 "But" Claire looked in a bewildered way at Paul 
 Veniza "but you said " 
 
 "I know I did," Crang interrupted brusquely, "but 
 we're all here a little early and there's lots of time to 
 countermand the other car." He indicated Paul 
 Veniza with a jerk of his head. "He's far from as 
 well as he was last night. At least you'll admit that 
 I'm a good doctor, and when I tell vou he is not fit to 
 go this morning that ought to be enough for both of 
 you. I'll phone and tell them not to send the limou- 
 
 sine." 
 
 Still Claire hesitated. Paul Veniza had closed his 
 eyes. 
 
 Crang shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "You can do as you like, but I cjon't imagine" a 
 snarl crept into his voice "that it will give him any 
 joy to witness the ceremony, or you to have him. Suit 
 yourselves; but I won't answer for the consequences." 
 
 "I'll go," said Claire simply and as Paul Veniza 
 lifted himself up suddenly in protest, she forced him 
 gently back upon the couch again. "It's better that 
 way," she said, and for a moment talked to him in low, 
 earnest tones, then kissed him, and rose, and walked 
 out from the room.
 
 280 PAWNED 
 
 Crang, with a grunt of approval, started toward the 
 telephone. 
 
 "Wait!" Paul Vcniza had raised himself on his 
 elbow. 
 
 Crang turned and faced the other with darkened 
 face. 
 
 "It is not too late even now at the last moment!" 
 Paul Veniza's face was drawn with agony. "I know 
 you for what you are, and in the name of God I charge 
 you not to do this thing. It is foul and loathsome, the 
 basest passion and whatever crimes lay at your door, 
 even if murder be among them, no one of them is com- 
 parable with this, for you do more than take a human 
 life, you desecrate a soul pure as the day God gave it 
 life, and " 
 
 The red surged into Crang's face, and changed to 
 mottled purple. 
 
 "Damn you!" he flung out hoarsely. "Hold your 
 cackling tongue! This is my wedding morning 
 understand?" He laughed out raucously. "My wed- 
 ding morning and I'm in a hurry!" 
 
 Paul Veniza raised himself a little higher. White 
 his face was white as death. N 
 
 "Then God have mercy on your soul !" he cried. 
 
 And Crang stared for a moment, then turned on his 
 heel and laughed.
 
 XXIV 
 
 THE RIDE 
 
 JOHN BRUCE turned the corner, and, on the 
 opposite side of the street, drew back under the 
 shelter of a door porch where he could command 
 a view of the entrance to Paul Veniza's house. And 
 now he stood motionless, waiting with cold patience, 
 his eyes fixed on the doorway across the street. He 
 was there because Crang was either at the present 
 moment within the house, or presently would come to 
 the house. It was nearly eight o'clock. The old 
 traveling pawn-shop was drawn up before the door. 
 
 He had no definite plan now. No plan was needed. 
 He was simply waiting for Crang. 
 
 His eyes had not left the doorway. Suddenly, tense, 
 he leaned a little forward. The door opened. No; 
 it was only Hawkins I He relaxed again. 
 
 Only Hawkins 1 John Bruce's face grew a little 
 sterner, his lips a little more tightly compressed. Only 
 Hawkins only an old man who swayed there outside 
 the door, and whose face was covered with his hands. 
 
 He watched Hawkins. The old cabman moved 
 blindly along the sidewalk for the few steps that took 
 him to the corner, and turning the corner, out of sight 
 of the house, sat down on the edge of the curb, and 
 with his shoulders sunk forward, buried his face in his 
 hands again. 
 
 281
 
 282 PAWNED 
 
 And John Bruce understood; and his fingers, in his 
 pocket, snuggled curiously around the revolver that 
 was hidden there. He wanted to go to that old bent 
 figure there in its misery and despair, who was fight- 
 ing now so obviously to get a grip upon himself. But 
 he did not move. He could not tell Hawkins what he 
 meant to do. 
 
 Were they minutes or were they hours that passed ? 
 Again the front door of Paul Veniza's house opened, 
 and again John Bruce leaned tensely forward. But 
 this time he did not relax. Claire! His eyes drank 
 in the slim, little, dark-garbed figure, greedy that no 
 smallest gesture, no movement, no single line of face or 
 form should escape him. It was perhaps the last time 
 that he would see her. He would not see her in his 
 prison cell he would not let her go there. 
 
 A queer sound issued from his throat, a strange and 
 broken little cry. She was gone now. She had crossed 
 the sidewalk and entered the traveling pawn-shop. 
 The curtains were down, and she was hidden from 
 sight. And for a moment there seemed a blur and 
 mist before John Bruce's eyes then Hawkins, still 
 around the corner, still with crouched shoulders, still 
 with his face hidden in his hands, took form and grew 
 distinct again. And then after a little while, Haw- 
 kins rose slowly, and came back along the street, and 
 climbed into the driver's seat of the traveling pawn- 
 shop, and sat fumbling at the wheel with his hands. 
 
 The door of Paul Veniza's house opened for the 
 third time and now John Bruce laughed in a low, 
 grim way, and his hand, hugging the revolver in his 
 pocket, tightened and grew vise-like in its grip upon 
 the weapon. It was Crang at last!
 
 TKE RIDE 283 
 
 And then John Bruce's hand came out from his 
 pocket empty. 
 
 Not in front of Claire! 
 
 He swept his hand across his forehead. It was as 
 though a sudden shock had aroused him to some stark 
 reality to which he had been strangely oblivious. Not 
 in front of Claire! Claire was in the car there. He 
 felt himself bewildered for a moment. Hawkins had 
 said nothing about driving Claire too. 
 
 Crang's voice reached him from across the street: 
 
 "All right, Hawkins! Go ahead!" 
 
 Where was Paul Veniza ? Crang had got into the 
 car, and the car was moving forward. Wasn't Paul 
 Veniza going too? 
 
 Well, it did not matter, did it? Crang was there. 
 And it was a long way to Staten Island, and before 
 then a chance would come, must come; he would make 
 one somehow, and 
 
 John Bruce ran swiftly out into the street, and, as 
 the car turned the corner, swung himself lightly and 
 silently in beside Hawkins. Crang would not know. 
 The curtained panel at the back of the driver's seat 
 hid the interior of the car from view. 
 
 Hawkins turned his head, stared into John Bruce's 
 face for an instant, half in a startled, half in a curi- 
 ously perplexed way, made as though to speak and 
 then, without a word, gave his attention to the wheel 
 again. 
 
 The car rattled on down the block. 
 
 John Bruce, as silent as Hawkins, stared ahead. On 
 the ferry! Yes, that was it! It was a long way to 
 Staten Island. Claire would not stay cooped up in 
 a closed car below; she would go up on deck to get
 
 284 PAWNED 
 
 the air. And even if Crang accompanied her, it would 
 not prove very difficult to separate them. 
 
 He looked around suddenly and intercepted a fur- 
 tive, puzzled glance cast at him by Hawkins. 
 
 And then Hawkins spoke for the first time. 
 
 "You'd better get off, John Bruce," he said in a 
 choked voice. "You've done all you could, and God 
 bless you over and over again for it, but you can't do 
 anything more now, and it won't do you any good to 
 come any further." 
 
 "No," said John Bruce, "I'm going all the way, 
 Hawkins." 
 
 Hawkins relapsed into silence. They were near the 
 Battery when he spoke again. 
 
 "All the way," Hawkins repeated then, as though 
 it were but a moment gone since John Bruce had 
 spoken. "All the way. Yes, that's it after twenty 
 years. That's when I pawned her twenty years ago. 
 And I couldn't never redeem her the way Paul Veniza 
 said. And she ain't never known, and thank God she* 
 
 ain't never going to know, that I that I " A 
 
 tear trickled down the old face, and splashed upon the 
 wrinkled skin of the hand upon the wheel. And then 
 old Hawkins smiled suddenly, and nodded toward the 
 clock on the cowl-board and the speed of the car 
 increased. "I looked up the ferry time," said Haw- 
 kins. 
 
 They swung out in front of the ferry house, and the 
 car stopped. A ferry, just berthing, was beginning to 
 disgorge its stream of motors and pedestrians. 
 
 "We're first in line," said Hawkins, nodding his 
 head. "We'll have to wait a minute or two." 
 
 John Bruce nodded back indifferently. His eyes
 
 THE RIDE 285 
 
 were fixed on the ferry that he could just see through 
 the ferry house. Certainly, Claire would not stay down 
 in the confined space of the ferry's run-way all the trip; 
 or if she did, Crang w?" 1r1 n't. His face set. Quite 
 unconsciously his hand had gone to his pocket, and he 
 found his fingers now snuggling again around the 
 weapon that lay there. 
 
 And then he looked at Hawkins and stared again 
 at the other, startled. Strange, he had not noticed it 
 before ! The smile on Hawkins' face did not hide it. 
 The man seemed to have aged a thousand years; the 
 old face was pinched and worn, and deep in the faded, 
 watery blue eyes. were hurt and agony. And a great 
 sympathy for the man surged upon John Bruce. He 
 
 could not tell Hawkins, but He reached out, and 
 
 laid his hand on the other's arm. 
 
 "Don't take it too hard, Hawkins," he said gently. 
 "I perhaps perhaps well, there's always a last 
 chance that something may happen." 
 
 "Me?" said Hawkins, and bent down over his gears 
 as he got the signal to move forward. "Do I look like 
 that? I I thought it all out last night, and I don't 
 feel that way. I'll tell you what I was thinking about. 
 I was just thinking that I did something to-day when 
 I left my room that I haven't done before in twenty 
 years. I've left the light burning." 
 
 John Bruce stared a little helplessly. 
 
 "Yes," said Hawkins. He smiled at John Bruce. 
 "Don't you worry about me. Mabbe you don't under- 
 stand, but that's all I've been thinking about since we've 
 been waiting here. I've left the light burning." 
 
 Sick at heart, John Bruce turned his head away. He 
 made no response.
 
 286 PAWNED 
 
 Hawkins paid the fare, ran the car through the 
 ferry house, and aboard the ferry itself. He was fum- 
 bling with a catch of some kind behind his seat, as he 
 proceeded slowly up the run-way. 
 
 "He'll want a little air in there," said Hawkins, 
 "because it's close down here. It opens back, you 
 know the whole panel. I had it made that way when 
 the car was turned into a traveling pawn-shop didn't 
 know what tough kind of a customer Paul might run 
 into sometime, and I'd want to get in beside him quick 
 
 to help, and I " The old cabman straightened up. 
 
 The car was at the extreme forward end of the ferry 
 and suddenly it leaped forward. "Jump, John 
 Bruce! Jump clear!" old Hawkins cried. "There's 
 only two of us going all the way and that's Crang 
 and me ! Claire and Paul '11 be along in another car 
 tell them it was an accident, and " 
 
 John Bruce was on his feet too late. There was 
 a crash, and the collapsible steel gates went down 
 before the plunging car, and the guard chain beyond 
 was swept from its sockets. He reeled and lost his 
 balance as something, a piece of wreckage from the 
 gates or chain posts, struck him. He felt the hot blood 
 spurt from shoulder and arm. And then, as the car 
 shot out in mid-air, diving madly for the water below, 
 and he was thrown from his feet, he found himself 
 clinging to the footboard, fighting wildly to reach the 
 door handle. Claire was in there! Claire was in 
 there ! 
 
 There was a terrific splash. A mighty rush of water 
 closed over him. Horror, fear, madness possessed his 
 soul. Claire was in there ! Claire was in there and 
 somehow Hawkins had not known! Yes, he had the
 
 THE RIDE 287 
 
 door handle now ! He wrenched and tore at the door. 
 The pressure of the water seemed to pit itself against 
 his strength. He worked like a maniac. It opened. 
 He had it now! It opened. He could scarcely see in 
 the murky water only the indistinct outlines of two 
 forms undulating grotesquely, the hands of one gripped 
 around the throat of the other only that, and floating 
 within his reach a woman's dress. He snatched at the 
 dress. His lungs were bursting. Claire ! It was 
 Claire ! She was in his arms then blackness then 
 sunlight again and then, faintly, he heard a cheer. 
 
 He held her head above the water. She was 
 motionless, inert. 
 
 "Claire! Claire!" he cried. Fear, cold, horrible, 
 seized upon him. He swam in mad haste for the iron 
 ladder rungs at the side of the slip. 
 
 Faces, a multitude of them, seemed to peer at him 
 from above, from the brink of this abyss in which he 
 was struggling. He heard a cheer again. Why were 
 they cheering? Were they cheering because two men 
 were locked in a death grip deep down there in the 
 water below? 
 
 "Claire I" he cried out again. 
 
 And then, as his hand grasped the lower rung, she 
 opened her eyes slowly, and a tremor ran through her 
 frame. 
 
 She lived ! Was he weak with the sudden revulsion 
 that swept upon him now? Was that it? He tried 
 to carry her up and found that it was beyond his 
 strength. And he could only cling there and wait for 
 assistance from above, thankful even for the support 
 the water gave his weight. It was strange I What 
 were those red stains that spread out and tinged the
 
 288 PAWNED 
 
 water around him? His arm! Yes, he remembered 
 now! His shoulder and arm ! It was the loss of blood 
 that must have sapped his strength, that must be sap- 
 ping it now so that 
 
 "John I" Claire whispered. "You John I" 
 
 He buried his face in the great wet masses of hair 
 that fell around her. Weak? No, he was not weak! 
 He could hold her here always always. 
 
 He felt her clutch spasmodically at his arm. 
 
 "And and Hawkins, John?" she faltered. 
 
 He lifted his head and stared at the water. Little 
 waves rippled across its surface, gamboling inconse- 
 quentially at play. There wasn't anything else 
 there. There never would be. He made no answer. 
 
 A sob shook her shoulders. 
 
 "How how, did it happen?" she whispered again. 
 
 "I think a a gear jammed, or something," he said 
 huskily. 
 
 He heard her speak again, but her voice was very 
 low. He bent his head until it rested upon hers to 
 catch the words. 
 
 She was crying softly. 
 
 "Dear, dear Hawkins dear Daddy Hawkins," she 
 said. 
 
 A great mist seemed to gather before John Bruce's 
 eyes. A voice seemed to come again, Hawkins' voice ; 
 and words that he understood now, Hawkins' words: 
 
 "I've left the light burning." 
 
 THE END.
 
 RET
 
 A onn 77 """"""""""iilli 
 uuu 779 651 9