Partners Of The Night/Chapter 1
I
First Deputy Police Commissioner Bradley, head of the Detective Bureau, was snapping directions across his fiat-topped desk to Lieutenant Detective Clifford in speech as terse and factual as a telegram. Until a year before Bradley had been an Inspector, the highest grade to which a policeman can rise from the ranks. But so effective had he been, and so promising for larger responsibilities, that the preceding Commissioner of Police had Secured for him a year's leave of absence and had appointed him to the position of First Deputy Commissioner, who in the New York Department must be a private citizen, and who is Chief of the Detective Bureau; and the present Commissioner had renewed his leave of absence and had continued him in this powerful position.
The famous "Chief" was short, but of a formidable breadth of shoulders, and had a dark clenched-fist variety of face pointed with small brilliant eyes. "Clean-up" Bradley he had been christened in his patrolman days in tribute to his courage and physical prowess; and "Clean-up" Bradley the news, papers still called him because of his spectacular sweeping from the streets of thugs and criminals. He had made live copy for the newspaper boys; he had grown to be the hero of almost every front-page criminal romance of the yellow papers, and New York, viewing him as he cleverly and masterfully conducted himself in these exciting histories, had come to rank him as the greatest chief of detectives that had ever protected its life and purse. Bradley and Clifford sat regarding each other without warmth, but with official courtesy. There were rumors about Headquarters that the spectacular chief and his young subordinate with the brilliant record--Lieutenant Clifford had fallen down badly in the last year, however--were hitting it off none too pleasantly together. But whatever they felt, both men were masters of the high art of masking sentiment and intention.
"That's all we know about the case," Commissioner Bradley chopped out in conclusion. "But it ought to be easy for you to grab the dip that collared Mrs. Fletcher's money."
"I'll do what I can," said Clifford.
"Remember, she's a society headliner. Gets all kinds of space in the papers. She's put up an awful holler here, and we've gotta make good with the new administration. Well, so-long."
"So-long, Chief."
Clifford, sea-bronzed, and looking much more a forceful young man of affairs than a police official, passed out into the corridor. Instantly several friends in plain clothes were upon him, asking when he had got back, and whether it had been raining in Lun'on, old chappie, doncherknow, and whether half a dozen husky New York coppers couldn't stop that little free-for-all over there-- this was in the early days of the Great War-- speaking a cockney dialect acquired in dead-head beats at variety theaters. During this ponderous facetiousness an erect gray-clad man, with face of Scotch-Irish leanness and immobility, came down the corridor and bowed slightly as he passed the detectives. All saluted, except Clifford.
"Who's he, Captain?" Clifford asked in a whisper from Captain Brown, with whom he had drawn to one side.
"Well, you certainly have been away!" exclaimed the gray-haired Brown. "that's the new Commish."
"What, is that Commissioner Thorne!"
Clifford, with quickened but concealed excitement, watched the head of the police department go down the granite steps of Headquarters and out into his waiting car. From the moment he had heard, while in Vienna, that a new Commissioner had taken office, he had pinned a doubting hope on Thorne. He had wondered if the new Commissioner was the sort who would help him in the vague, daring but determined enterprise he had been feverishly and secretly considering. No man lived for whose friendship and backing he was more eager. But his experience on the force had taught him to be cautious; cautious even of police offcials. He would not, dared not, trust Thorne until he knew the fiber of the man.
"What's the Commissioner like, Captain Brown?" he inquired.
"Search me," said Brown. "All the boys are up in the air about him. He may be a two-spot, or he may be the whole deck with both sleeves full o' trumps. But he ain't showed nothing yet. He leans a lot on Bradley." Captain Brown dropped his voice and gave a slow wink. "Bradley is still the big noise in the Department, and them that's wise is going to string along with him. You get me?"
Clifford nodded and went down the broad stairway into Lafayette Street. His watch showed quarter past one. He was already late for his lunch engagement with Stanley Tarleton, so after his six months' trailing over Europe at the city's expense he permitted himself the luxury of a taxicab at his own. As he thrummed toward the Astor, those daring thoughts and plans subsided that had possessed him while he had sat with Bradley and while he had gazed questioningly after Commissioner Thorne. He wondered, with a quickening of all his nerves, if he was about to meet that friendly, haughty, wittily loquacious, reticent young woman whose acquaintance he had made upon the Mauretania. For after having been tantalizingly evasive concerning her intended whereabouts, yesterday at the very moment of parting at the dock Miss Regan had smilingly tossed to him the information that she would be stopping at the Astor.
II
Seven years before, when big Bob Clifford had announced that he had joined the force, his Yale friends had come near gasping themselves into individual and collective spasms. Stanley Tarleton had expressed the general consternation: "Good God, Bob, who ever heard of a college man, and a Yale man at that, becoming an ordinary cop!" he had exploded. "You're a bull-necked, dough-brained idiot! Look here--what's the matter with business, or the professions?"
The ex-guard had smiled his humorously obstinate smile at Tarleton, who had graduated from the law school in Clifford's sophomore year.
"Nothing's the matter, nothing at all--except everything, as far as I'm concerned. I don't care for business. As for the professions, where the devil will yours truly dig up the money to keep himself in soup, collars and shoe-polish while he's getting a start? Just remember that I am the king of finance who collected the unwilling dollars that saw me through Yale."
"What's that got to do with it? You know there are a hundred men who'd be as proud as brass buttons to stake the man who won last year's Harvard game!"
"And after they had staked me--what then?" Clifford had glanced about Tarleton's perfectly appointed office. "it's over two years since you started in at law. On the level now, are you paying expenses?"
"No," the other had confessed.
"And neither would I. No, I don't want any man to stake me. I've two feet of my own--large feet--and I'm going to stand on them."
"But, man--there's no money in a police career!"
"Perhaps not," Clifford had cheerfully agreed. "But you're not clearing expenses. The average lawyer or doctor in this country makes less than a thousand a year. I'm starting out on eight hundred and get a neat little raise every year."
"Oh, the present may not be so bad," the exasperated Tarleton had conceded. "But what about the future?"
"Big!"
"Big?" had scoffed the lawyer.
"Yes, sir, big!" Clifford had flamed with sudden energy. "All you educated chaps make a rush for the soft-handed jobs--with the result that the soft-palm market is overstocked, that only a few are making a decent living, and even fewer have any chance to come out of the ruck and show at the front. How many of the high-brow lads have ever thought of the police department?--starting in at the bottom, I mean? Not one. I tell you," rising in his glowing earnestness, "the biggest chance in the world for a man with brains, educated brains, is on the force! I don't mean chance to make big money. I mean a chance to do worth-while work and make a name for himself!"
Tarleton had stared at his enthusiastic, determined face. "Well," he had growled, "go do as you damned please."
Clifford had smiled again. "that's exactly what I've already done."
III
Clifford and Tarleton sat at a corner table in the Astor, their first greetings over.
"On something new that's interesting, Bob?" inquired Tarleton.
"Bradley assigned me another 'lemon.'" Clifford had dropped the mask of composure he had worn at Headquarters, and his tone was bitter. "Mrs. Stuyvesant Fletcher runs into town from Newport last night, carrying a wrist-bag; in the bag is a purse containing close on a thousand in bills. When she gets home she has the bag all right, but in it no purse. This morning she gets the purse in the mail--empty."
"What're you going to do?"
"Do? What can I do?" demanded Clifford. "While the Chief was telling me of the case, I knew who'd turned the trick. At least I was almost certain--Slant-Face Regan, the smoothest pickpocket lifting leathers in New York. that's the way Slant-Face works."
"If you know, why don't you go out and arrest him?"
"What good 'll it do to arrest him? He got money, and money can't be identified unless it's marked, which this wasn't. Slant-Face would be turned out of court, and that would be just another public fall-down for Bob Clifford. No, the Chief knew it was a lemon when he handed it to me. He hasn't assigned me a live case in a year. Stanley, I haven't told you yet," Clifford went on in mounting exasperation, "but that Eddie Graney case that's kept me away six months, is the worst lemon in the crate. I hunt Graney all over Europe-- the very day England enters the war I find him sick in a London hospital--he dies on me there ten days ago--and all I lead back in triumph to Headquarters is a death certificate. The Chief gave me the assignment just to get me out of the way."
Tarleton opened his eyes wide. "To get you out of the way? Why, I thought everybody considered you the brainiest maxi in the department!"
"If I am, that's exactly why Bradley wants me where my brains will do no harm."
"I wish to God, Bob, you'd taken my advice and published your book about the police under your own name!"
"Yes," sneered Clifford, "and have got every man on the force down on me!"
Tarleton eyed him searchingly. "you're wearing an awful grouch, Bob. There's not a woman mixed in it, is there?"
"No," very shortly; but under his sea-tan Clifford flushed ever so slightly.
Tarleton was silent a moment; then he asked abruptly: " Met Commissioner Thorne yet?"
"No. Have barely seen him. The boys at Headquarters seem to think he's a dead one."
"Do they? Some men find out where they're at and what they've got to do before they begin to act. here's a tip, Bob. Thorne will bear watching." Another moment of silence. "By the way, I gave him a copy of your book and told him who wrote it."
"Why the devil did you do that?" cried Clifford in dismay. Then sharply: "You know the Commissioner?"
"A little," Tarleton said guardedly.
"Well," doggedly, "whatever he thinks, what I said is straight. The police department can be, and should be, and some day is going to be, one of the most valuable and humane of our institutions. What we've got to do is--"
"Throw on the brakes, old man. I've read it all in your book." Tarleton smiled. "As I was saying, Bob, you're awfully sore to-day for a great detective."
"Great detective!" exploded Clifford. "Close your trap, Stanley, or I'll be handing you one. Great detective! If you want to give up a dollar and a quarter you'll find him in a book. But elsewhere, not on your life!"
Tarleton merely smiled good-humoredly.
"Great detectives, in novels, or down at Headquarters, they're all bunk!" Clifford fumed on. "Take Bradley. If you believe what you read, Bradley's one whale of a detective. These miraculous cases of detection aren't miracles when you're behind the scenes. Most of the tricks are turned by 'stools'--crooks who give away their pals. Then the case is dressed up for the papers, showing the detective a super-bloodhound, super-scientist, super-toxicologist, super-psychologist and every other super-ologist thing that's happened along since Adam got cramps eating green apples. Of course the newspaper boys are wise, but they stand for it, grinning inside themselves, for those are the sort of fairy tales the dear public wants. God, but it gives me a mortal pain!"
"If it's so bad as that, why don't you quit the force?"
"Quit? Not on your life!"
"Well, go ahead then and get it off your chest."
"There's plenty to get off, all right!" Clifford, tight-mouthed by habit about his work, hesitated. But his long-gathering wrath and purpose were grown too strong for his habitual reticence. His voice lowered. "Let me tell you something, Stanley --and it's something I've been keeping strictly under my hat, waiting my time. The professional crooks could be almost cleaned out of New York if it wasn't for just one thing."
"And that?"
"The police."
"The police?"
"Yes, the police. They protect the crooks, get a share of the loot--are silent partners. They talk about cleaning up the city, but they don't want to clean up the city."
"Oh, see here, Bob!" protested Tarleton.
"I'm not talking of the rank and file," Clifford hastened to explain. "Most of the men are a clean, fine, honest bunch. I'm talking of a few-- of a hidden, rotten, powerful few in the very center of' things." He glanced about cautiously, leaned nearer and lowered his voice to a mere breath. "here's where I come to my great point. Want to know who's the biggest crook in New York?"
"Who?"
"His name is Bradley, and he happens to be Chief of Detectives."
Tarleton stared. Clifford's face had tightened; his narrowed eyes gleamed.
"Bradley's the crook I'm after. And, by God, Bradley's the crook I'm going to get!"
"Bradley--the detective of all detectives!" breathed Tarleton. He gazed at the young man, quivering with grim determination, who had declared war on the spectacular public hero. "Does --does Bradley know?"
"Can't say. But he knows I'm not his sort. that's why he's fed me lemons for a year."
"But, man alive--how does he work it?"
"I've only begun to find out, and yet it would take me a day to tell you what I know. He's working a dozen lines. Here's just one sample of how--"
Clifford's words snapped off; he stared beyond Stanley for a moment. "When did he come in?" he exclaimed in a quick whisper. "I say, Stanley, act as though nothing had happened, and in a Couple of minutes casually look around and notice at the third table directly behind you the man in gray-green tweed, with a gray-streaked Vandyke beard. You only get his profile."
Presently Tarleton swept the room, then turned back. "Well? "
"That's Joseph Russell."
"Which leaves me knowing as much as I did before."
"Naturally, since you are a civil lawyer. Mr. Joseph Russell, as far as culture and manners are concerned, would do honor to us as ambassador to London or Berlin. Incidentally he is the real head of a swindling, wire-tapping and gambling syndicate. And he's as safe as though he were incorporated under the laws of New York." "How's that?"
"Russell is the brains; he doesn't participate personally unless it's a big coup. But the chief point is that he is protected. He pays Bradley a regular retainer of $5,000 a month, and twenty-five per cent upon all big jobs he pulls off."
"How did you learn all this? "
"Not through any of your popular-fiction detective magic. One of my 'stools'--a new one--used to be in Russell's gang. He got sore at Russell and blew the thing off to me in a long session last night."
"If you can prove it, my God, what a sensation!" murmured Tarleton.
"It 'll shake the city, the whole country-- there's no doubt about that," said Clifford, seriously.
"But can you get the proof?"
"I've got to get it!"
"How do Russell and Bradley manage, their affairs?"
"Exactly how I don't know. That's one of the big things I'm going to find out. Bradley doesn't expect me to get anything on this Mrs. Fletcher thousand-dollar case, and I shan't try; but while I'm supposed to be running down the dip, I'm going to be looking into the private performances of Mr. Bradley."
"Luck to you, Bob. But if Bradley's half as clever as people say, look out."
"Oh, he's clever all right--none cleverer," Clifford conceded. "By the by," he added after a long puff at his cigar," that man with Russell, it's ten to one that Russell is stringing him along on some foxy scheme. Blackmore is his name; Colorado millionaire, and very easy; came over on the Mauretania with me, and was trimmed for twenty thousand by card sharps."
From time to time, as he had spoken, Clifford's eyes had slipped toward the curtained entrance from the lobby. He now stole another glance. He gave an inward start. In the doorway had appeared his ship acquaintance, Miss Regan, all in white, graceful, self-possessed. Would she see him?
But she gave no glance about the restaurant. Without hesitating, or waiting for the grand-ducal guidance of the headwaiter, she made the straight way among the tables of one who has a prearranged objective point. Where was she going, Clifford asked himself. Then his heart seemed to stop and turn cold. For with a little nod at the two, she had taken a seat at the table between Joseph Russell and the Colorado millionaire.
What in God's name was she doing with that pair? He recalled now, with sickening presentiment, how on shipboard she had adroitly evaded all his skilful attempts to draw her into talk about herself. Who was she, really?
Her chair faced him. Palpitantly he waited for her to glance in his direction. In a few moments she did so, and her dark face lighted with a smile. She spoke to Russell, who looked around, rose, and strode toward Clifford's table.
"How are you, Bob?" he said cordially, gripping Clifford's hand.
"Hello, Joe."
"I didn't know you were back. If you can excuse yourself for a minute, a couple of your friends would like to speak to you."
Leaving Tarleton bewildered by this easy familiarity between a crime-prince and a police official, Clifford was the next moment at Russell's table. Miss Regan's face showed a more frank liking than at any time since their friendship had been begun six days before by his seizing her gust-captured steamer rug.
"I had no idea you were a friend of Uncle Joe," she exclaimed. " You told me so little about yourself, you know."
"I followed your policy," he stammered. The millionaire he nodded to and forgot.
"It isn't wise to be too free about oneself with chance friends, is it?" His knowing her uncle seemed instantly to admit him within the reserve he had striven five intimate sea days to penetrate. "Won 't you join us for a little while?" He sat down.
"I suppose you are already on a new case?" remarked Joe Russell.
"A new case?" Miss Regan lifted her eyebrows. "So then--you are a doctor?"
"A doctor!" Joe Russell laughed. "Mr. Clifford is Lieutenant Detective Clifford, and he's the cleverest detective in these parts." There was very genuine admiration in Mr. Russell's voice.
"A detective!" Miss Regan's dark face, so openly cordial the moment before, became instantly cold and steely hard. Her black eyes held steadily upon him in an amazing hauteur and contempt. "So you are a detective." She turned away, reaching calmly for her soup spoon. "Lieutenant Detective Clifford," she remarked icily, "I believe your friend is waiting for you."
Clifford stumbled away, his mind flashing questions. What had been her past? What was she doing now? What was her active relationship to that magnate of protected crime, Joseph Russell? Was it her role to cross and recross on luxurious liners, bait to lure rich dupes into the net of Joe Russell?
As he let himself down into the. chair, Tarleton eyed him in searching amazement.
"So, after all, there is a woman!"
"Only a steamer acquaintance," Clifford tried to say calmly.
IV
"I'm going to watch that man Blackmore," Clifford remarked a little later. "he's in for a good trimming at the hands of Russell. I don't care much how hard Russell soaks him; his fortune's in mining property, and over three hundred men were killed in his mines last year, and it's been champagne and Europe for his. But his money may lead from Joe Russell to Bradley."
"Ah," breathed Tarleton, " and give you the evidence you want?"
Clifford nodded. "By the by, Tarleton, one or two of Bradley's men are always watching Russell when he has anything on, and they know me and my men. I ought to have some one to help me that they don't know. If you're not busy, could you lend me a hand during the next few days. Nothing very dirty--and I'll phone you when I want you."
"These are dull times with me. I'm as much a boob as the incomparable Dr. Watson, but I'm on."
For three days Clifford, keeping himself unseen, tailed Blackmore and Russell--frequently Miss Regan was with them--about the more showy hotels and restaurants of New York, where Russell entertained the Western millionaire with the select lavishness of the rich New Yorker who knows exactly where to find the best. On the third day Russell and Blackmore made the acquaintance of four plausible men, ostensibly strangers to Russell. Clifford had hourly been expecting confederates of Russell to come upon the stage. To him his part of the game was wearisomely old, though daily that game entrapped its scores of big and little victims.
Toward three in the afternoon of the fifth day he tailed the six men through the rain to an old brownstone house in the West Forties. Ten minutes later he and Tarleton, having arrived in a taxicab, and having gone up the steps shielded by raised umbrellas, and having paid a week's rent in advance, were the occupants of a front room in a furnished-room house directly across the way.
"See that man in a black suit," said Clifford, the man walking up and down the street?"
"Yes. Who is he?"
"Harrigan, one of Bradley's men. Perhaps he's planted here to collect Bradley's percentage when the trick is pulled. But there 'll be nothing doing to-day. they'll let Blackmore win, so that he'll plunge to-morrow."
Sure enough, shortly after five, Blackmore came out with Russell, both smiling with the good humor of chance's favorites. During the following twenty-four hours neither Clifford nor Tarleton left the house. The next afternoon Blackmore with the four men, Russell this time not with them, again entered the brownstone residence.
"To-day Blackmore will probably get his trimming," said Clifford.
At five Clifford and Tarleton saw Blackmore come out alone and go down the steps. His face was dour. At the foot of the steps they saw Officer Harrigan stop him, draw back his black coat and flash his shield, and converse with Blackmore for several minutes.
Then Harrigan went up the steps of the brownstone house with an air of determination.
"Come on!" said Clifford, and the two men hurried from the house.
At the corner, as though the meeting were entirely casual, Clifford intercepted his steamer acquaintance. "By the by, Mr. Blackmore," he remarked, when the greetings were over,"I've noticed some pretty shady characters playing with you during the last day or two, and I just saw Officer Harrigan speaking to you. Drop any money?"
"Fifty thousand."
"Pool room?"
"Yes. On the Louisville races."
"What did Harrigan say?"
"That I'd been trimmed by a bunch of wiretappers. He said he was going into the house to try to get my money back, and advised me to go straight down to Headquarters and report to his chief, Mr. Bradley."
"Better hurry if you want to catch him. Only don't mention that you met me. I'm supposed to be on another case and it'd put me in bad for the Chief to know I was here. So long."
Clifford moved to a private looking closed car standing at the curb. The nod he gave the chauffeur showed that it had been standing there with a purpose.
"Have a lot of motor trouble, Jack. Stall, except when I tell you to go. Get me?"
The chauffeur nodded, and the two slipped into the car. The chauffeur made show of having difficulty in starting his engine--the while Clifford kept his eyes upon the door of the brownstone front.
"What will Bradley do when Mr. Blackmore makes complaint?" inquired Tarleton.
"He'll send men down to raid the place. But within half an hour the gang will have the blackboards, telephones and telegraph instruments out of there; the wires, you know, just go into the wall and end there. Bradley's men will find an empty room. Harrigan will report that he was thrown out by the bunch, who all escaped. There 'll be no arrests and Blackmore will never see a cent of his fifty thousand."
Harrigan came out of the house they watched. "Follow that man in black," Clifford called sharply to the chauffeur.
The motor moved lamely toward Broadway. Here Harrigan caught a southbound car, and the automobile deftly followed it. At Fourteenth Street Harrigan left the car, walked eastward through the heterogeneous crowd and turned into a saloon.
"Go in after him, Tarleton; he knows me," breathed Clifford. "Don't appear to notice him, but see everything that he'does."
Tarleton got out. The automobile ran into Irving Place, where the chauffeur had to attend to its refractory engine, and Clifford screened himself by opening to its widest an evening paper and engrossing himself in the financial news. Thirty minutes later Tarleton was back in the car.
"Well?"
"Harrigan bought a couple of whiskies, talked with the barkeeper about the baseball scores which were coming in over the ticker, then carelessly pushed a sealed Manila envelope across to the barkeeper, saying, 'Just keep that for me, Bill, will you, till I ask you for it?' The barkeeper took the envelope, nodded and tossed it into the cash drawer."
"Twelve or thirteen thousand in that envelope, and nobody ever guessed it," commented Clifford. "Clever, doing such a thing before a crowd. What next?
"Harrigan went into a private booth in the saloon, telephoned, then went out and started west through Fourteenth Street."
"He telephoned to some one that the money was at the saloon. His job 's done."
Clifford stepped from the car, nodding a dismissal to the chauffeur. "Come on. We want to follow that envelope. You go back into the saloon and hang around and watch the barkeeper's cash drawer. Keep looking at the ticker; get your dinner at the saloon's grill. there's always a bunch of well-dressed sports in there, and you'll not be noticed."
Clifford himself went up into a little restaurant on the stoop floor of a house on the north side of the street. He commanded an elaborate, every-dish-cooked-to-order dinner, that would excuse his remaining there for two or three hours, and from his table at the curtained window he kept his eyes upon the saloon across the way. Who Would be the man? Bradley himself?
He had not the optimism of his earlier days in the service, but he exultantly felt that he was closing in upon Bradley. His way was not yet clear, but perhaps within a few hours, or a day, he might have the goods on Bradley, and the great Bradley might officially be no more! And then the cleanout the rebuilding!
He wished he knew what manner of man Commissioner Thorne was. And while he waited in tense expectancy, his mind flashed again and again to that beautiful, disdainful, enigmatic Mary Regan. Just what was she?
Night came elsewhere, but night never comes in that part of Fourteenth Street. The million lights of saloons, picture shows, museums of manufactured freaks, gave to the street a hectic imitation day, through which girls with cold prospecting eyes, and cadets, and gangsters, and gunmen, and flashy sports and honest working folk pursued variously their pleasure or their business.
Suddenly Clifford's frame tensed. Into the saloon had sauntered a gray-haired man in a straw hat--Captain Brown, who but a few days since had advised him to stick close to Bradley. Was Captain Brown in it? He was not conscious of thought or purpose, but his whole being gave a sudden leap as he recalled that night almost two years back when old Captain Brown had begged him for mercy.
Presently Tarleton emerged from the saloon and Clifford hurried from the little restaurant to meet him. Tarleton reported that the yellow envelope had been unobtrusively slipped to a gray-haired man in a straw hat.
Almost at once Captain Brown came out. The two shadowed him.
"I wonder where that envelope will go next," said Clifford.
It went to Captain Brown's house up in the Bronx. There it remained throughout the night, for Clifford, who watched the house alone, saw no one else enter and no one come out. The next morning Captain Brown, fresh shaven, and in citizen's clothes, went down into the financial district. Clifford tailed him from bank to bank. He glimpsed enough in one bank to inform him of what Brown was doing in all--changing the bills that had come as tribute from the fake pool-room into fresh bills of different denomination. Yet another precaution to cover up the trail; the identity of the money was being lost.
All day Clifford tailed Brown, but the old Captain did not go near Bradley. That night, however, the Captain openly called at Bradley's house in West Eighty-second Street. At half past nine he came out.
"Well, Bradley has got his rake-off now," Clifford whispered to Tarleton, who had joined him, "and has got it safe."
"Safe? You mean you've done all this for nothing?"
"Not for nothing. I've learned just how the money is handled, and who are the men that handle it. At least some of the men. And that's a lot to know. There's a big trick to turn yet before we get Bradley--but I think we've got him! Come on, Brown's the man for us."
They shadowed the Captain to the subway and saw him go down the stairway to the uptown trains.
"He's going home; I was certain he would," said Clifford. "we'll take a taxi and perhaps beat him to his house."
"What'll you do there?" asked Tarleton as they were rolling northward.
"I'll tell you after I see whether it works. But this much I'll tell you now. I've got Brown right where I want him, and, what's more, Brown knows I've got him."
Clifford could not keep a note of excited triumph from his voice. "Two years ago I caught Brown running a gambling-joint through a dummy proprietor; caught him so tight that he didn't try to deny a thing. He begged me not to show him up. Said he'd less than three more years to serve in order to be able to retire with a captain's pension--said it was his first offense and he'd never do it again--spoke of the disgrace--his wife. Well, I decided to be easy with the old man; the temptations in the department certainly are hell. But I can revive the affair; I can go on the stand and destroy Brown. that's my lever."
At ten o'clock, from around a corner a block away, the two saw Brown let himself into his house with a latch-key. Clifford allowed several minutes to pass; then "Wait around for me, Stanley," he said, and walked up to Brown's house and rang the bell.
Tarleton saw the white-haired Brown himself, in his shirt-sleeves, open the door, give a start, then put a hand on Clifford's shoulder in hearty fashion and draw him in.
It was midnight when Clifford came out.
"Well?" Tarleton eagerly demanded.
"It's all right, I've got it! " Clifford exclaimed exultantly, starting for the subway.
"Great stuff! How did you do it?"
"It was awful--and it made me sick of myself." Clifford wiped his face. "I got Brown together with his wife and put the screws on him and twisted 'em hard. I showed him I knew exactly the part he was playing in Bradley's wholesale business of protecting crime. I told him that he had to come across and help me smash Bradley, or I'd smash him. He would be dishonorably discharged--be a disgraced man--lose his pension--be criminally prosecuted. It was him, or Bradley. Finally his wife sided with me and he caved in. he's going to help me."
"But may he not go back on his word and tell Bradley what you're doing?" inquired Stanley.
"I told him," Clifford answered grimly, "that at the first suspicion I had that he was playing me crooked, I'd smash him the next minute. Brown will stick."
"And Bradley--how are you going to get him?"
"Brown had already arranged to collect in person two thousand dollars from French Jimmie tomorrow night. Jimmie is sore at the way he's being held up; he wants Bradley kicked out, even if he himself goes out of business helping to do it. we're to fix it so that the money Jimmie hands Brown is marked. Also to-morrow night Brown has an appointment to meet Bradley at twelve at the Knickbocker for supper. Brown is going to whisper that he changed the money he got from Jimmie at the Night and Day Bank, and slip the roll to Bradley under the table. The next minute I and some of my men will have Bradley, on him two thousand in marked money. And that'll be the end of Bradley!"
Clifford tingled as he spoke; and later, alone in his room, he still tingled. It was a great plan. Undoubtedly. But questions of policy thrust themselves into his victory-clutching excitement. Should he take Commissioner Thorne into the plan--the District Attorney? He paced his room. There was so much police intrigue, so much political intrigue, so many unseen but powerful forces ever operating. He was uncertain about the District Attorney, uncertain as to what secret political ambitions and influences might determine that official's actions. He could not yet trust Commissioner Thorne. Either man, for private reasons, might prefer, or feel forced, to quash the plan and spare Bradley.
On the whole, it was safest to go the thing alone. Once Bradley was publicly exposed, with the goods on, no one would dare try to save him.
V
It was the next afternoon, and again Clifford sat in Bradley's office. When he had called up Bradley, which he was required to do daily, Bradley had asked him to make his report in person --and his report of his failure to turn up a clue in the Fletcher case Clifford had just completed. Bradley, his big flat-iron of a jaw set, allowed a moment of silence to pass, the while he expressionlessly regarded his subordinate out of his small black eyes.
"Clifford," he remarked abruptly, "this past year you've made a pretty bum record."
"I'm sorry, Chief. But you know I've had pretty bum assignments."
Another moment of silence, during which the two sat gazing eye into eye; then in an even conversational tone: "Clifford, how'd you like to come in out of the rain?"
Clifford started inwardly. At first he could not answer, but he forced a blank look upon his face. "I don't know quite what you mean, Chief."
Again their gazes held, and neither spoke. Both knew that in those calmly spoken, apparently commonplace remarks, a great crisis had come--and gone. Clifford thrilled with the sense that Bradley, preferring him as an ally to an enemy, had offered to let him in on the inside where lay great power and easy riches. And Bradley, having offered alliance, was perfectly aware that it had been refused.
Bradley slightly lifted his heavy shoulders. "I guess I didn't mean anything in particular, Clifford. But I'm going to give you a live case now. You can lay off on that Fletcher thing. Lieutenant Cameron was to have handled a raid at Louie Gordon's joint in West Forty-seventh Street tonight, but Cameron reports that he's sick. I want you to take charge. Warrants and everything 's arranged for the raid. Get Gordon, and if there are any swells there, grab them, too. Gordon's been pretty raw, and we've got to throw the fear of God into these gambling hells, and we gotta show the public something. So go to it."
That night at eleven o'clock Clifford was in front of Gordon's. A few minutes before two plainclothes men had come out of the house, each having bought fifty dollars' worth of chips, bet them, and thereby gained the necessary evidence against the place. Clifford detailed two officers to guard against escape through the roof and two to watch the fire-escapes. He acted mechanically, cynically; wondering whether Bradley had amicably arranged with Gordon to "stand" for the raid--it being about Gordon's turn to serve as public object lesson of the police's activity; or whether Gordon had been refractory about paying tribute, and this raid's purpose was to whip him into line.
Clifford intended going through with the raid as efficiently as though it were strictly on the level, but his mind was all on that affair to take place at the Knickerbocker at twelve o'clock. Earlier in the evening, at French Jimmie's, he himself had marked the money and had witnessed its being passed to Captain Brown. There remained only the little completing scene of Captain Brown passing the money on to Bradley. Another hour and the mighty Bradley would be broken. Clifford trembled with excitement, impatience.
He gave the signal for the attack. Three men with axes dashed for the basement door; he and three others, armed with axes and crowbars, rushed up the stoop. Five minutes of furious chopping, and prizing at heavy locks, and the outer door of wood and the inner door of steel were burst open, and the raiding party rushed in and spread over the house. On the second floor, in a large back room where refreshments were spread out upon two sideboards and a table, Clifford found huddled together eight men.
"See here, Lieutenant Clifford," blustered Louie Gordon, coming forward, "what the hell d' yuh mean, breaking into a man's private residence like this?"
"Don't excite yourself, Louie," Clifford advised. "I've got you for fair. Have a warrant for you as keeper and warrants for these two men "--nodding at the roulette-wheel operators--"as 'Wheelman No. 1' and 'Wheelman No. 2,' and John Doe warrants for the rest of you. Boys," turning to his men, "McQuade, White and I will stay here with the prisoners; you others carry the stuff down to the wagon."
The four officers departed to strip the house of gambling paraphernalia. Suddenly one young man in evening clothes sprang forth from the group of prisoners.
"For God's sake, Lieutenant," he cried, "don't arrest me! It will kill my family!"
"Why didn't you think of your family before you came here?"
"Oh, let him off," put in Gordon, drawing nearer with the two wheelmen.
"Listen," breathed the young man eagerly, "if you let me go, there 'll be a thousand dollars--"
"Shut up!" snapped Clifford.
Suddenly Gordon, the two wheelmen and the young man in evening clothes rushed upon him. Clifford, caught unaware, was almost borne down. But before McQuade and White could come to his rescue, his four assailants, apparently perceiving the futility of such violent resentment, had drawn away.
"There'll be a charge of resisting arrest, as well as gambling, against you men," Clifford grimly announced.
Presently the four officers detailed to remove the gambling outfit to the wagon, came in and reported their work completed. When Clifford turned about to the prisoners, the young man in evening clothes had disappeared. None of the officers had seen him go. Clifford himself led a search of the house. The young man was not to be found.
"Come on with the others," Clifford ordered. He was disturbed but little by the escape. Anyhow, the inmates of a raided gambling-house were frequently allowed to go; and, at the worst, when arraigned in police court, they were let off with inconsequential fines.
Clifford glanced at his watch. It showed twenty minutes of twelve. He had plenty of time to make the Knickerbocker.
"McQuade, you take charge and see things over to the station," he ordered as they went downstairs. When he came out into the street Clifford saw behind the police van a touring car. A voice called from the automobile: "Everything all right, Lieutenant?"
The voice was Bradley's. Clifford crossed to the car. Beside Bradley in the tonneau sat a second man.
"All right, Chief," answered Clifford, forcing himself to be courteous to the man who was already tottering to dishonorable fall.
"Good. I've been showing the Commissioner around to-night, and as the last thing I thought I'd stop here a minute to let him have a look at a first-class raid." Clifford now clearly distinguished the lean, inscrutable face of Commissioner Thorne.
He saluted, and the Commissioner nodded and gave a brief "good-evening."
At that moment down the stoop of Gordon's house came the two officers Clifford had posted on the roof. Between them was the young man in evening clothes, struggling, pleading. At sight of Clifford beside the car, he tried to make a break for him.
"Damn you, so that's how you double-cross me!" he cried wildly.
"Hustle him into the wagon, boys," ordered Clifford.
"What's he mean?" queried Bradley.
"Probably a coke fiend, Chief--gone off his head."
"What!--are you the Chief?" the young fellow exclaimed eagerly. "I don't care what happens to me now, but, Chief, I won't stand for such a double-cross! I gave him a thousand to let me off, and now he arrests me just the same!"
"Take him on," ordered Bradley.
"But, Chief," insisted the young fellow frantically," I gave him a thousand dollars! Ten new one hundred dollar bills! He put them in his inside coat pocket!"
"That's so, Chief. I saw him put them there," struck up Gordon; and the two wheelmen chimed in to the same effect.
"What about it, Clifford? "
"It's a lie!"
"Search him," demanded the young man, "and you'll see!"
"Of course they're lying," said Bradley. "But it seems to me, Clifford, that the quickest way to quiet these people is for you to turn out your pockets."
For once Clifford lost his usually cool head. "Upon the accusation of arrested gamblers? Hardly, Chief!"
"Just as a matter of form, I think you'd better for your own sake, Clifford. Officers McQuade and White, have a look at Lieutenant Clifford's pockets."
Clifford stiffened and waited with wrathful composure. White slipped a hand inside Clifford's coat. It came out with a little packet of bills which he handed to Bradley. Clifford gave a gasp. Bradley rapidly fingered the money.
"Ten bills here, Lieutenant--each for a hundred--all new. How about it?"
The truth began to break upon Clifford. "They must have slipped the money on me when they roughed me."
"Rough you?" put in Gordon. "Nothing of the sort!"
"Lieutenant, your objecting to being searched, and then the finding of this money, it doesn't look very good," said Bradley. "we'll get at the truth of this right here and now. You say you were roughed?"
"By four of them. Gordon, two of his men, and that young fellow."
The four made denial in one voice, and in this denial the other gamblers joined them.
"Lieutenant, what officers were with you at the time?"
"McQuade and White."
"McQuade and White, did you see those men assault Lieutenant Clifford?"
"Not while we were there."
"You infernal li--"
"Lieutenant! Did either of you officers hear that young man offer a thousand dollars to be allowed to go?"
They had heard him mention money, but did not know what it was about, both men replied.
"Did you see any money passed?"
The two officers answered that the four men had drawn Clifford to one side, all had conversed in whispers, and they had seen the young man slip Clifford something, just what they could not say.
"It's a damned frame-up!" exploded Clifford.
"You'll have your chance to tell that to the Trial Commissioner," Bradley retorted sharply. "Commissioner Thorne, we seem to be getting at the few men who are giving the police department a bad name. McQuade, take charge of things here. Clifford, go home and report to me at nine tomorrow."
Dazed utterly by this swift upturning of his world, Clifford glared at Bradley. Scorching accusation trembled in his throat. It was a moment of supreme tenseness, while these two men gazed at each other.
But some force mightier than his wild rage held down Clifford's outburst. Saluting, he turned and strode away without a word, sick with that chagrin and wrath which has nothing on which to vent itself. Behind it all he now saw Bradley--clearly. Gordon and the young man and the other men in Gordon's house and the officers, all had been carrying out instructions given by Bradley. And Captain Brown--the old Captain had, after all, decided to risk his fortune with Bradley. And Bradley, failing to buy, had struck first--and struck swiftly, with unseen hand.
Framed, and framed perfectly!
He would never hurt Bradley now--nor Captain Brown. In discrediting him Bradley had disarmed him, had closed his mouth.
Next morning Clifford reported and was suspended on charges. On the tenth day thereafter he was before the Trial Commissioner, with whom sat Bradley and Commissioner Thorne. Besides all the witnesses against him from Louie Gordon's, three ex-owners of gambling houses testified to having paid him for protection. Clifford denied everything, though he knew denial to be useless. The following morning when he reported, as required, to the chief clerk, he learned that the Trial Commissioner had found him guilty and had recommended his discharge, and that Commissioner Thorne had countersigned the order. Silently Clifford turned over his pocket billy, his pistol and his shield.
In the corridor he saw Bradley coming in his direction. His whole being tensed, expecting malignant look or whispered taunt. But Bradley passed him with a calm nod, no slightest flicker of his brilliant eyes betraying that Clifford's downfall meant anything to him.
Truly he was a remarkable man. Through Clifford's anger and chagrin there rose up an unwilling admiration.
VI
Bitter, furious, bewildered as to the future, Clifford entered the Astor that night in response to an urgent request that he dine there with Stanley Tarleton. Ahead of him he saw Commissioner Thorne with a party, including two women, all in evening dress, waiting at the elevators. Evidently the party was going to dine in one of the private rooms above.
As he sat heavily down in the restaurant he saw Miss Regan at another table. She gave him a straight cold look of triumph. Plainly she had read the great front-page newspaper stories of his discharge, and plainly she exulted in his public humiliation.
He gave back her gaze with a look of grim defiance--though God knew what he was going to do!
"Too bad, old man, about to-day's smash-up," Tarleton said when he came in.
Throughout the meal, even to Clifford preoccupied with his bitterness, Tarleton seemed oddly excited. And when the time for dessert came, Tarleton, who never passed over the sweets, stood up.
"Come up to my room for a smoke, Bob."
"What's doing, Stanley? "Clifford whispered as they entered the elevator.
"Just a cigar."
"But say"--when the elevator door had opened and they had stepped forth--"this isn't your floor!"
Tarleton glanced sharply up and down the corridor. It was empty.
"Come on!"
Swiftly he went down the corridor and thrust a key into a door.
"But, Stanley, this isn't your--"
"I can't say anything, I don't know anything," Tarleton said rapidly. "In there with you, and wait. I'm off to the Winter Garden."
The door closed and he was gone. Clifford found himself in a sitting-room furnished in peacock blue, obviously part of a suite. He sank into a chair and fumblingly lighted a cigar. What the dickens was it all about?
Presently a side door, which he had previously tried and found locked, silently swung open, and there was an instant-long dim sound of chattering and china, as though a few rooms away a party were dining in another part of the suite. Through the door stepped the Commissioner of Police. Clifford, who had sprung up, automatically saluted. The next moment he felt his right hand being shaken.
"Awfully sorry about what happened, Lieutenant,"
Commissioner Thorne began in a low, rapid voice.
"But, Chief," stammered Clifford, "it was a frame-up!"
"That's the way it smelled to me. But the evidence was all dead against you, and I had to sign your discharge--or excite suspicion."
Clifford stared. "I don't understand."
"That's why I arranged this meeting--to make you understand. But no one besides Tarleton must know that we have met, or that we meet again."
Clifford nodded, bewildered, yet vaguely perceiving. That dinner at the other end of the suite--was it merely a cautious device whereby the Commissioner might thus meet him, unsuspected?
Commissioner Thorne was speaking again--crisply; and his awakened gray eyes were peering appraisingly right into Clifford.
"Sit down. As I said, Lieutenant, it's necessary to my purpose for you to understand a few things. I know everything's not sweet in Denmark. I suspect a few things about Bradley--just what, I'm not saying. But it's not safe to go against Bradley until one's sure of one's ground. I'm lying low and watching. Bradley has a tremendous influence in the department, and he is immensely popular with the public. he's a great man--who's got headed wrong. There would be an uproar if I tried to remove him before I had a strong and perfect case. I'd be the one to lose out. There--does that give you a line on me?"
Clifford's face had begun to light. "It cerainly does!"
"I may be taking chances with you in telling you as much as I have," Thorne continued in his low, rapid voice, "but the most cautious man must begin to take a risk somewhere. I've been lying low and watching you, too. That's an interesting book you wrote; cocksure, exuberant, Utopian--but good. I like the point of view you take toward criminals, and your idea of what a police force might be. I'm taking this chance with you, Lieutenant, because if you're what I'm inclined to think you are, you're a man that I and the department can't afford to lose. you're under a cloud, but I want to hang on to you if I can."
"But how?"
"Until you're cleared, I want you to work for me secretly; no one must ever guess that we have any connections. I can take care of your pay out of my contingency fund. For that, you know, I do not have to give an account except a strictly private one to the comptroller."
"What do you want me to do?"
"First of all, keep after Bradley. that's your big job. Second, I want you to look out for me. I suspect Bradley feels that I'm not his kind and that he's waiting his chance to force me out. Third, and this may take most of your time, I want you to look into several cases that the police have failed to solve or have purposely covered up. There you are. What do you say?"
"Say?" exclaimed Clifford. "I say yes!"
The Commissioner held out his hand. The two sealed their alliance in a long grip.
"The next time you get Bradley," Thorne went on, "get him! Again I'll say that I may be making a mistake in taking you thus far into my confidence. I hope not, and believe not. But it's for you to prove not by making good."
"Chief--" began Clifford. Commissioner Thorne interrupted by standing up. "It isn't safe for me to stay here any longer; Bradley's having me watched. I'll see that you get the data for your first case in a day or two. it's about a young woman Tarleton tells me you've already met--a Miss Mary Regan. Luck to you! Good night." And the Commissioner, opening the door through which he had entered, stepped through and closed it.
Two minutes later Clifford stepped from the elevator. Sweeping out from the dining-room was Mary Regan. She again gave Clifford her proud, disdainful gaze of triumph. He returned it steadily--wondering, throbbing--and passed on into the blazing night of Broadway. He paused, blinked about him, and drew a dazed, exultant breath.