Her Forbidden Knight (18 page)

Then, just in time to prevent her crying out, the footsteps halted on the landing below, and there came the sound of a key turning in a lock and a door opening and closing. Evidently the person who had entered had been the tenant on the same floor with Knowlton, across the hall. She sighed with unutterable relief.

Many minutes passed, and each seemed to Lila an hour. What could the detectives be doing? Why did they not go, since they could have found nothing? For she thought, in her ignorance, that by her removal of the counterfeit money she had saved Knowlton from arrest. Her ideas of the manner of procedure of the law and its minions were extremely hazy, as those of a young girl should be. She was soon to be undeceived.

She waited, it seemed to her, for years. She felt faint and dizzy from fatigue and anxiety, her body was limp and nerveless, and she was telling herself that she must soon succumb, when she heard a door open in the hall below. At last!

There were footsteps, and Knowlton’s voice came up to her:

“Is it necessary—must I wear these on the street?”

Then came the reply of the detective, and the sound of clinking steel, and steps descending the stairs, and the opening and closing of the street door.

Lila stood dumb with amazement. The meaning of what she had heard was clear to her: they had arrested him and were taking him to prison! But why? Was there something else of which she did not know? But she tossed that thought aside impatiently.

Knowlton had told her his story in detail, and she trusted him. But—prison! She shuddered with horror, and felt herself unable to stand, grasping at the baluster for support.

It was the necessity for action alone that sustained and roused her. To meet this new crisis she forgot her weakness of a moment before, and became again the courageous and daring woman she had been at the arrival of the detectives. She no longer hesitated or feared. She had something to do that must be done.

Holding the parcel tightly under her arm, she descended the stairs. As she passed through the hall in front of Knowlton’s rooms the detective who had been left behind to complete the search for evidence looked out at her through the open door. Her heart beat madly, but she forced herself not to hasten her step as she descended the first flight of stairs to the outer door.

Another moment and she was in the street—free.

She glanced to the right and left, uncertain which way to turn. What should she do with the parcel? She wondered why it seemed so difficult to get rid of the thing. Surely nothing could be simpler than to dispose of an ordinary-looking parcel, a foot square.

One could drop it in an ash can, or leave it on a bench in the park, or merely place it on a stoop—any stoop—anywhere. But somehow to do any of these things seemed fraught with horrible danger. She could have cried with exasperation at her hesitation over a difficulty apparently so simple.

Suddenly she remembered what Knowlton had said: “It is best to be safe, and I shall take it to the river.” Of course! Why had she not thought of it before?

She turned sharply, and as she turned noticed a man standing directly across the street gazing curiously at the house she had just left. At sight of him she started violently, and looked again. It was Sherman. There could be no doubt of it; the light from a streetlamp shone full on his face.

The spot where Lila was standing was comparatively dark, and as Sherman remained motionless she was convinced that she had not been recognized. But she was seized with terror, and, fearing every moment to hear his footsteps behind her, but not daring to look round, she turned and moved rapidly in the direction of the Hudson.

Ten minutes later she entered the ferry-house at the foot of West Twenty-third Street. A boat was in the slip and she boarded it and walked to the farther end.

She leaned on the rail, gazing toward the bay, as the boat glided away from the shore, and almost forgot her anxiety and her errand in contemplating the fairyland before her eyes.

The myriads of tiny twinkling lights with their background of mysterious half darkness, the skeletonlike forms of the massive buildings, barely revealed, and farther south, the towering outlines of the palaces of industry, were combined in a fantastic dream-picture of a modern monster.

Lila looked up, startled to find that the ferryboat had already reached the middle of the river. She glanced round to make sure she was not observed—there were few passengers on the boat—then quickly lifted the parcel over the rail and let it fall into the dark water below.

She could hardly realize that it was gone. Her arm was numb where it had been tightly pressed against the parcel, and it felt as though it still held its burden. She felt tired, and faint, and walked inside and seated herself.

When the boat arrived at the Jersey City slip she did not land. A half hour later she left it at Twenty-third Street. Another half hour and she was ascending the stairs to her room uptown.

Entering, she removed her hat and coat and threw them on a chair. She was tired, dead tired, in brain and body. She wanted to think: she told herself she had so much to think about.

The face of her world had changed utterly in the past few hours. But thought was impossible. She felt only a dull, listless sense of despair.

She had gained love, but what had she lost? Everything else had been given up in exchange for it. But how she loved him!

But even that thought was torture. Her head seemed ready to burst. Tears would have been a relief, but they would not come.

She dropped into a chair by the window, and, pressing her hands tightly against her throbbing temples, gazed out unseeing at the night.

When the dawn came, eight hours later, she had not moved.

W
HEN
B
ILLY
S
HERMAN HAD VISITED DETECTIVE
Barrett—the red-faced man with carroty hair—and had heard him say, “We will get Mr. Knowlton tonight,” he knew that the thing was as good as done. Detective Barrett was a man to be depended upon.

But Billy Sherman never depended upon anybody. He made the rather common mistake of judging humanity from the inside—of himself—and the result was that he had acquired a distorted opinion of human nature. His topsyturvy logic went something like this, though not exactly in this form: “I am a man. I am bad. Therefore, all men are bad.”

And there is more of that sort of reasoning in the world than we are willing to admit.

Sherman did not go so far as to distrust Detective Barrett, but he had an idea that he wanted to see the thing for himself. Accordingly, shortly after six o’clock in the evening he posted himself in a doorway opposite Knowlton’s rooms on Thirtieth Street.

He had been there but a few minutes when he was startled by the sight of Lila approaching and entering the house. This led to a long consideration of probabilities which ended in a grim smile. He thought: “If they get her, too, all the better. Barrett’s a good fellow, and I can do whatever I want with her.”

Soon a light appeared in the windows of Knowlton’s rooms. The shades were drawn, but the man in the street could see two shadows thrown on them as the occupants moved about inside.

Suddenly the two shadows melted into one, and Sherman found the thing no longer amusing. Cursing the detectives for their tardiness, he repaired to the corner for a bracer.

He soon returned and resumed his position in the doorway.

After another interminable wait he saw Detective Barrett arrive with his men, and with fierce exultation watched them enter.

Another wait—this time nearly an hour—before two of the detectives emerged with Knowlton. This puzzled Sherman. “Where the deuce is Lila?” he muttered. Then he reflected that the other detective was probably waiting with her for a conveyance.

And then, to his astonishment, he beheld Lila descending the stoop alone.

She was half a block away before he recovered his wits sufficiently to follow her.

On the ferryboat he mounted to the upper deck to escape observation, completely at a loss to account for Lila’s freedom, or for this night trip across the Hudson. Looking cautiously over the upper railing, he had observed her every movement as she stood almost directly beneath him.

And then, as he saw her lift the parcel and drop it in the river, he had comprehended all in a flash. Stifling the exclamation that rose to his lips, he shrank back from the rail, muttering an imprecation.

Somehow she had obtained possession of the evidence—the chief evidence—against Knowlton, and destroyed it! And he had calmly looked on, like a weak fool! Why had he not had sense enough to stop her when she had first left the house? These were the thoughts that whipped him into a frenzy of rage.

But Sherman was not the man to waste time crying over spilled milk. After all, he reflected, the damage was not irreparable, since his knowledge gave him a power over her that should prove irresistible. By the time the boat had returned to Twenty-third Street he was once more fiercely exultant.

But he took the precaution of following Lila uptown; nor was he satisfied until he saw her white face dimly outlined at her own window.

Then he turned, muttering: “I guess she’ll do no more mischief tonight.”

He was determined that he would not make a second mistake. The first thing was to make sure of Knowlton. Perhaps early in the morning—He glanced at his watch; it was a quarter past nine.

At the corner he turned into a saloon and telephoned the office of Detective Barrett, and, finding him in, made an appointment to call on him in three-quarters of an hour.

He was there five minutes ahead of time. The detective was alone in the office and opened the door himself in response to his visitor’s knock.

He was in ill humor.

“You’ve got us in a pretty mess,” he began, placing a chair for Sherman and seating himself at his desk. “We got Knowlton all right, but there wasn’t a scrap of stuff in the whole place. Unless we can dig up something, what he can do to us won’t be a little. That was a beautiful tip-off of yours—I don’t think. I don’t say it wasn’t on the square, but it looks like—”

Sherman cut him short.

“Wait a minute, Barrett. You shut your eyes and go to sleep, and then when you don’t see anything you blame it on me. The stuff was there, and it’s your own fault you didn’t get it.”

“Then you’d better go up there and show it to Corliss. He’s probably looking for it yet.”

“Oh, he won’t find it now.” Sherman leaned forward in his chair and held up a finger impressively. “When you went in that house Knowlton wasn’t alone. There was a woman in his rooms with him, and a big bundle of the queer. And you politely closed your eyes and let her walk out with it.”

The other stared at him.

“What sort of a game is this?” he demanded.

“This is straight,” said Sherman, “and I can prove it. I know who the woman was, and I know what she did with the stuff. What I can’t understand is how she ever got away.”

“Do you mean to say she was inside when we got there?”

Sherman nodded emphatically.

The detective looked puzzled:

“Then how in the name of—” He stopped short, while his face was suddenly filled with the light of understanding—and chagrin.

“Well, I’m jiggered,” he said finally. Then he explained Knowlton’s ruse—or rather Lila’s—to Sherman. “It’s an old trick,” he ended, “but we weren’t looking for it. We thought he was alone. But where did she go? What did she do with it? Who is she?”

“She took a ride on a ferryboat and dropped it in the middle of the Hudson.”

“Then it’s gone.”

“Thanks to you, yes.”

“But where did you get all this? Of course, she’s a—”

“Back up!” Sherman interrupted. “She’s a friend of mine.”

“She seems not exactly to hate Knowlton,” the detective observed dryly. “Who is she?”

Sherman winced.

“What does that matter? She knows enough to send him higher than a kite, and she’ll have to come through with it.”

The other became impatient.

“But who is she? We ought to get her tonight.”

There was a pause; then Sherman said slowly:

“You won’t get her at all.”

At the look of inquiry and surprise on the detective’s face he proceeded to explain:

“I told you she’s a friend of mine. Maybe it would be better to say I’m a friend of hers. Put it however you please, but she’s not to be locked up. Serve her as a witness, and she’ll give you all you need against Knowlton, and more, too.

“I’ll see to that. She can’t get out of it. Anyway, if you arrested her, what would happen? You couldn’t make them testify against each other, and they’d both get off.”

“But as soon as we serve her she’ll beat it,” the other objected.

“Leave that to me. Of course, I’ve got a personal interest in this, and you ought to consider it. I don’t have to remind you—”

“No,” the detective interrupted hastily, “you don’t. I have a memory, Billy.”

“Well, then it’s up to you.”

The detective finally capitulated and agreed to do as Sherman wished. Sherman gave him Lila’s name and address, and advised him to postpone serving the subpoena as long as possible.

“I want to prepare her for it,” he explained as the detective accompanied him to the door. “I’ll see her first thing in the morning. If possible, we want to prevent Knowlton from knowing that she is to appear against him, and I think I can manage it. You’ll hear from me tomorrow. Going uptown?”

The other replied that he had work to do in the office that would keep him till midnight, and wished him good night.

Sherman was well satisfied with the day’s work. With Knowlton in the Tombs and Lila completely in his power, he felt that there was nothing left to be desired. As he sat in an uptown subway local he reviewed his position with the eye of a general, and, discovering no possible loophole for the enemy, sighed with satisfaction.

At Twenty-third Street he left the train and made his way to the lobby of the Lamartine.

He was led there more by force of habit than by any particular purpose. At first he had thought of going to see Lila at once, but had decided that it would serve his ends better to allow her to have a night for reflection over the day’s events. She would be less able to resist his demands.