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“The Silk Thread’ XY by WILL . a PAYNE
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The Silk Thread
Will Payne has become one of The Red Book's “regulars.” This is the first of the stories he is writing for you.
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buildings in different
IVE F | parts of the city were wrecked by explosions of dynamite. Each of them housed a
gambling-room. Then about three o'clock one morning Abe Condon, boss gambler, issuing from his bedroom in pajamas, revolver in hand, was shot through the heart. The police and the newspapers explained that these urbane events were incidents in a war to the death between two rival factions of gamblers.
A little after eleven o’clock of the morning on which Condon was killed, “Diamond Dick” Tyrrel — sometime proprietor of a gaming-establishment of the more genteel sort—sold fifty thou- sand dollars’ worth of city bonds to the Huddicutt Trust Company.
2% Silk Thread
Will Payne
D oO
ILLUSTRATED BY JOHN NEWTON HOWITT
Four days later a woman, claiming to be Condon’s widow, produced a list of securities which she said were in Condon’s house when he was murdered. The list included fifty thousand dollars’ worth of city bonds, the numbers on which were the same as those on the bonds which Tyrrel had sold. Tyrrel was arrested and indicted; whereupon he sent certain persons word to this ef- fect: “Pull me out, or I'll drag you in.”
It was Edwin W. Huddicutt, young- est vice-president of the trust company, to whom Tyrrel had sold the bonds. Gossip amused itself, orally and in print, by explaining how ‘Diamond Dick,” sometime proprietor of a genteel gaming-establishment, came to be per- sonally acquainted with this young man. Meanwhile Huddicutt’s identi-
433
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The dinner was fished, the coffee drunk and the cigars smoked; the talk was running out. Ata quarter past nine the informal little company arose from the table. Then a waiter went over to the Jackson Boulevard side of the room, pushed up a window-shade and stood for a moment looking down into the street with a napkin carelessly draped against his right breast.
434
THE SILK THREAD
fication of Tyrrel as the person who had sold him the bonds was the main point in the evidence against him.
The trial was set for Thursday, the seventeenth, at ten o’clock. Wednesday, the sixteenth, Edwin W. Huddicutt dined as usual at the Meridian Club, two college-mates being his table com- panions. It was a modest little dinner with only mineral water beside Huddi- cutt’s plate. For something over two
years now, nothing more potent had stood beside his plate.
THE dinner was finished, the coffee
drunk and the cigars smoked; the talk was running out. At a quarter past nine the informal little company arose from the table. Then a waiter went over to the Jackson’ Boulevard side of the room, pushed up a window-shade and stood for a moment looking down into the street with a napkin carelessly draped against his right breast.
A few minutes after that, as Huddi- cutt strolled leisurely toward the ele- vator, a page intercepted him, holding out a little tray on which lay a plain white envelope with Mr. Huddicutt written on it in pencil in a woman’s hand. The envelope contained a note, hastily penciled in the same woman’s hand. It ran:
I have a message from him. Very im- portant. Will wait for you in doorway of Bauer's Café, around on Wabash.
There was no signature; but the en- velope contained something else—a rather ponderous gold pencil, with a clasp by which one might attach it to one’s vest. It bore an engraved mono- gram, but even without that, Huddicutt would have recognized it immediately.
He had presented it to Augustus— otherwise “Mullens’”—Johnstone upon the latter’s sixteenth birthday. Since then Mullens Johnstone had lost many things, including his inheritance, his health, his reputation, his self-respect and—latterly—his right to appear on the street without fear of being taken into custody. But it seemed he had-kept the pencil. Huddicutt remembered how Mullens, in good fortune and _ bad, usually carried it in his vest pocket.
435
Huddicutt went down in the elevator, got his hat and stick and walked briskly around to the Café Bauer, which eccu- pied a basement on Wabash Avenue. He remembered the young woman as soon as he saw her, for perhaps twice or thrice he had seen her in Mullens’ company. She was tall and dark, with big, defiant eyes. The moment he stepped in she hurried up to him and spoke low and rapidly, with an im- patient line down her forehead:
“‘He’s come back. I think he’s going to die. He wants to see you at once. It’s only ten minutes in a taxi.”
There was no other thought in Hud- dicutt’s mind than to get as quickly as possible to the man with whom he’d played hookey and pilfered from fruit- stands—with whom, later on, he had joined hands in opposing academic au- thority—and whom still later he had tried in sorrow and despair to keep from ruining himself as speedily and com- prehensively as possible. Even now Huddicutt was trying to untangle that scandalous financial mess which shad caused poor, tragic, broken Mullens to go into hiding with an_indict- ment over his head. Huddicutt’s heart was sore and heavy. This desperate coming back—evidently at once seek- ing the company of the dark young woman with big, defiant eyes—argued ill for any real reformation.
“We can get a taxi at the corner,” he said.
MINUTE later he was rolling west on Jackson Boulevard beside the tall, dark young woman—of whom he was scarcely more aware than of the machine in which they sat or of the chauffeur out in front. Questioning her didn’t even occur to him. He vaguely and rather unjustly resented her as an incident in Mullens’ ruin; otherwise he took her almost as impersonally as the sheet of note-paper in his pocket. He had paid no attention when she gave the chauffeur an address, and during the ride he scarcely knew in what direction they went. His mind was absorbed with the tragedy of Augustus Johnstone. The cab rolled up to the curb and stopped. Light from a street-lamp shone
Ele I
436
into it. In this glow he mechanically saw the girl bend forward and put out an eager hand to open the cab door and alight. In doing this she glanced around at him—a dark face, with big, defiant eyes.
It may have been the merest co- incidence, or there may have been some inner prompting so subtle that his brain did not register it. At any rate, he looked down at his right hand, around the middle finger of which a blue-silk thread was tied—a remembrancer. Im- mediately a brand-new thought drove through his brain like a thunderbolt.
But the girl was already getting out of the cab. He followed her. They were in front of a three-story brick building with an arched entrance, which evi- dently contained three flats—one of those structures that are common as peas over great areas of the’city, where people in modest circumstances live. It was a dingy sort of street, but the sort one can find a thousand miles of, more or less. It might be shabby and re- spectable, or it might be shabby and disreputable. There was no certainty except that it was rather dingy.
Three people—a man and two women —were standing by the stone steps that led up to the arched entrance. So much Huddicutt’s glance swept in. He paid the cabman and gave him a dollar tip; then he turned to follow the girl into the building—noting that the three peo- ple lingering by the steps eyed him curi- ously. At the foot of the steps he halted abruptly, exclaiming to his guide: “Oh, excuse me a minute. I’ve left my stick in the cab.” .
He ran to the curb, shouted, “Hey, taxi!” and sprinted down the street two rods, overhauling the vehicle and climbing in to get his stick. He paused to apologize and give the chauffeur an- other tip; then, smiling, stick in hand, he rejoined the girl and followed her upstairs.
HE applied a latchkey to the door of the upper flat, entered and turned on the light. His glance took in the back parlor of that type of flat. Evi- dently there was a slightly larger parlor in front, separated from this room by
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the tawdrily gaudy cotton portiére. That would be the dining-room behind the arch and portiére on the other side ; behind that would be the kitchen, bath and a couple of bedrooms. This back parlor was furnished with a_ pathetic, time-eaten, woebegone cotton-plush mag- nificence. The young woman motioned to a faded blue-plush chair, saying:
“Sit down. I’ll see how Mullens is.’ At once she added bluntly, holding out her hand: ‘Give me the pencil.”
There seemed a difference in her atti- tude toward him; it seemed rather to grin brazenly at him. But he handed her the pencil from his coat pocket and sat down; whereupon she swiftly dis- appeared into the dining-room, and he again glanced about him, smiling slightly.
He was hardly up to the medium height, and was slim and fair. His fine hair, brushed back from a sloping fore- head, was the color of straw and as shiny. His blue eyes shone, and in smiling he showed even white teeth. He was effulgent. Even in repose he shed a pleasant glow, as though his eager interest in life gave itself out inces- santly. Simply to look at him made one feel he would have many friends. His nervous system was keyed up—as shown by restless little motions of his slim hands, the play. of his thin face, his shining eyes. He might be anything but dull.
The person who stepped through the tawdry portiéres out of the dark front room and looked down at him was quite the opposite of all this, being more than six feet high and of an oxlike immensity. It seemed he could never be anything but dull. His low forehead, one thought, would wrinkle only in response to primi-- tive emotions. His pale eyes looked blank as pieces of chinaware, and were slightly filmy. His broad face was marked with innumerable tiny red lines like the silk fibers in bank-notes. Any experienced observer would have taken him for a hard drinker, and he exhaled now a strong alcoholic odor. The face was barred by a thick, curly, blue-black mustache.
From descriptions which he had heard, Huddicutt judged this must be “Bull”
?
THE SILK THREAD
Wilks, chief of a band of desperate criminals who had themselves duly in- corporated as Wilks’ Private Detective Agency.
FTER looking blankly down at
Huddicutt a moment the large man lowered himself into the chair next the door and spoke calmly in a deep, hoarse voice :
“Well, I suppose you begin to see what you’re up against.”
“T don’t, quite,” Huddicutt replied soberly. “Explain it.”
The man twisted his big, curly mustache, as though explaining were a supererogatory bore; then he put his mighty hands on his massive knees and explained hoarsely while his china eyes stared bovinely at the captive:
“A witness saw you leave the Café Bauer with Maggie. Those three people down by the steps—maybe you noticed *em—are respectable enough to stand up under any cross-examination. They’ll swear you drove here with her and fol- lowed her upstairs. You used to be a
busy little sport yourself, you know. Of
course, we’ve got the record—times you and Mullens Johnstone and Hal Pear- son and Erby North and others were hitting ’er up a mile a minute. You pass for a good boy now—down to business every morning. I see by the papers you’re going to marry Miss Lambert next month—fine old family, the Lam- berts.” He twisted his mustache again and seemed more bored than ever. “Maggie’s married, all _ straight enough. We’ve got that shot-proof. Maybe your respected father wouldn’t think much of her husband’s occupation. Maybe she don’t see him very regular. But it’s holy-bonds-of matrimony stuff before a jury and for the newspapers. “That gentleman downstairs is going to run across Maggie’s husband by early candlelight to-morrow morning and tip this off to him—all shot-proof before a jury. Naturally the husband will swear out a John Doe warrant for you—bad, rich young masher breaking up _ his happy home. He'll get a couple of policemen to serve it. I’ve got ’em all picked out now. They’re good friends of mine. About half-past nine to-
437
morrow they’re going to break in here and nab you. I’ll attend to the scenery. I’ve got some empty whisky” and beer- bottles to scatter around the place— broken glasses, cigarette-stubs, et cetera. You can bank on Maggie to do her part right. She’s a bright girl, and she’s go- ing to earn more money ’n she’s seen in a long while.
“You'll say you’re due in criminal court at ten o’clock to give testimony against Dick Tyrrel, and you’ll promise to come back and give yourself up as soon as you're through testifying. The husband’ll let you go. He’s a good- hearted sucker. Then you'll beat it to court and testify.”
He paused again to stroke his mustache and resumed, dully:
“I suppose there’s a thousand men around this town that look just about like Dick Tyrrel. I suppose you never knew him very well, anyhow. A young man like you, brought up in a fine, rich Christian home, wouldn’t naturally know the proprietor of a gambling- house very well. When Dick Tyrrel is pointed out to you in court, you can be awfully surprised. When you come to get a good, square look at him, you can’t really swear he’s the chap that handed you the bonds. It will seem to you the chap that handed you the bonds was fatter and balder and had more gray hair. You can be so uncertain about it that they can’t convict Dick. Of course, that’s the main point. °
“In that case Maggie’s husband and the policemen and everybody else will plumb forget they ever saw you here. You can trot back to your father’s bank and go right ahead with your arrange- ments to marry Miss Lambert. On the other hand, if you should be so positive about Dick that they convict him, you’ll be pinched again right away on this John Doe warrant—in plenty of time for the afternoon newspapers to smear it all over the front page. Then Mag- gie’s husband will sue for divorce, with you as co-respondent. After that he’ll sue you for alienating his wife’s affec- tions. There’ll be plenty of newspaper stuff for a year to come. I’ve got some spicy little material out of your wild- oats field that'll attract attention when
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“Have a drink?” the captor inquired politely. ‘No, thank you,” the captive replied—politely also. The captor yawned. ‘Make your self comfortable,” he invited indifferently. “Long while till morning.”
properly dressed up. We'll sure make man. You're not a detective, you know. a celebrity out of you.” You didn’t use any Bertillon system on
He twisted his mustache and rumbled Dick Tyrrel or take his finger-prints. hoarsely: ‘Think it all over, young How can anybody be so cocksure about
438
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a man’s identity from only looking at HUupPpicuTr comprehended with him a few minutes? It wasn’t Dick that deep astonishment. The plot was give you the bonds; it was some other like its authors—raw, nasty, stupid; chap. Just keep that in mind.” yet it had a certain brute cunning, was
439
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at once preposterous and astute, ridicu- lous and ominous. He knew well enough what the newspapers would make of it if it came to them. He could already hear the incredulous jeer with which quite half his fellow-townsmen would receive his story of an inveigling young woman and a burly jailer. He appre- ciated the essential weakness of his own position—to-wit: he had sown a con- siderable crop of wild oats, and a virtu- ous world is slow to believe in reforma- tion. There arose upon his mind the image of a proud girl; and he won- dered whether—believing his story—she would really ever forgive him for be- smearing the eve of their nuptials with this squalid, ill-smelling newspaper sen- sation. He was very sober indeed.
The big man yawned a little and added: ‘‘That’s what you’re up against. Think it over carefully. We'll spend the night here, you know. You can make yourself comfortable over on the sofa, and I’ll do the same here.”
He moved his chair up to the writing- table, opened his lips and sent forth a huskily booming command: “Oh, Mag!”
The dark young woman with defiant eyes appeared at the dining-room por- tiére and glanced over at Huddicutt with
triumph. “Fetch in the booze,” growled the big person.
She came back in a moment with a tray holding whisky, a siphon. a tall glass, cracked ice.
“Have a drink?” the captor inquired politely.
“No, thank you,” the captive replied —politely also.
The captor yawned, bit the end from a cigar, hoisted his feet to another chair and filled the glass. “Make yourself comfortable,” he invited indifferently. “Long while till morning.”
Huddicutt went over and lay down on the lounge, his face to the wall—very sober indeed, as he rehearsed carefully all the circumstances of his situation. Presently he moved his right hand so as to look at the middle finger. The silk thread was gone from it. From that circumstance he drew a deep con- solation.
THE RED BOOK MAGAZINE
IVE minutes before nine of the morning of the trial, Peter Huddi- cutt, president of the trust company which bore his name, was sitting at the desk in his office.
The office was a spacious and hand- somely furnished room which occupied the right-hand front corner of the bank- ing floor. From the door of its anteroom one could look down the long and lofty general office of the trust company, be- hind the marble counters of which two hundred clerks were beginning the day’s business; or one could look more im- mediately upon the space, inclosed by a bronze railing, where stood the desks of the five vice-presidents, the secretary, the treasurer.
Now, however, no one was looking either in or out of