by Otto Penzler
“Help Dolores,” the Hag cried, “help the old woman who once knew so well the plaudits of the crowd. Dolores of the Imperial ballet— I, Dolores, who danced for kings. Now I need crusts. Help me, good people.”
And, as she begged her acute ears were attuned, not for words of sympathy, but for the intimate talk inside the vehicles, the chatter about social engagements, anything that might mean an unguarded mansion, a particularly fine display of gems at some social gathering—some target for the mob’s arrows!
Receiver of their largess, the Hag of the Opera was betraying their secrets to the banditti! Long had it been her trade, with no suspicion directed at her. She had played into the hands of Mort Mitchell and to those who had gone before him in command of the same mob. Now, however, the Hag had extended the scope of her double-crossing. Her greed aroused by the calculating Blackie Rango, the Hag was getting the heist info for Blackie while purporting to be co-operating with Mort, and was acting as the go-between to arrange the frame-ups against Mort’s mob which Blackie engineered!
The Hag was watching closely the faces in the cars as they approached the entrance. She was looking for the flaming hair and the face of Vi Carroll, the bearer of instructions, and she wandered up and down the row of cars until she saw Vi’s signal. She hobbled to the side of the handsome limousine and approached the window through which Vivian’s brilliant opera cape showed.
“Alms, good folks,” the Hag cried, leaning close to the window, and Vi lowered it, compassionately, turning to her escort as she did so.
“Give me some money for this miserable creature,” Vivian said, and a man of the party thrust a bill in her hand. Vi’s daintily gloved hand stretched through the auto’s window as the Hag whined her thanks. Her mumbled words, however, merely were a cover for the whispered words which Vi directed to her.
“The Horton Place on the Sound, Monday night!” Vi said, and the Hag winked acknowledgment of the words.
The shiny limousine moved forward toward the opera house entrance with Vi Carroll chatting laughingly with her companions as the Hag moved away. The first step in the trap set for Mort Mitchell and his mob had been taken. Within a half-hour the deceiving message would be on its way to pave the road for destruction. The Hag would relay the false information to Carlotta Wynn, emissary of the Mitchell mob!
The Hag moved down the line of carriages, ready to relay the frame-up message. She now was looking for Carlotta, the moll from Mitchell’s mob. She did not know that Carlotta, hidden in the milling throng on the sidewalk, had been almost at her elbow when Vi Carroll whispered her message—and further than that, the keen-eyed Carlotta, seeing through a changed appearance in the beautiful Vivian, had recognized the society-minded moll as the enemy she was stalking so desperately!
Carlotta Wynn, her teeth clenched and her hands doubled into small fists, gloried in the triumph she foresaw over the woman who had sent her into the underworld on her adventure into vengeance. That smiling beauty with the flaming hair now, apparently, a society favorite, only two years before had done the irreparable wrong to the black-eyed girl who stood in the opera crowd and planned her revenge!
The moll forgot the presence of the “music-loving kid” who always accompanied her to the opera performances. He was a harmless sort; he did not know that he was a pawn in the machinations of a mob. He went to the opera with the pretty girl who seemed pleased to enjoy the music with him.
Everything except revenge was forgotten by the black-haired moll. She moved forward as Vi’s auto moved toward the entrance.
“I could kill her now—!” she spoke aloud and the music-loving kid startled.
“Who could you kill, Carlotta?” he asked in astonishment. The girl recovered her poise.
“No one, Robbie,” she replied, “I was just joking.” She saw the Hag approaching and she knew the crone sought her, to relay the deathtrap message to Mort Mitchell.
“There’s the Hag,” Carlotta said, pushing toward her. “I always give her a little change. Isn’t she horrible looking? I feel as though I had to help her.”
She drew a few coins from her small purse and stepped to the side of the Hag, dropping the coins into the outstretched tin cup. The Hag leaned close to her, the repulsive, hairy mole almost touching the girl’s face.
“The Horton Place, on the Sound—on Monday night, girlie,” the Hag whispered. “Tell Mort it’s a pipe—and not to forget me.”
She turned from the girl, whining her plea for alms to others as Carlotta and her escort walked to the entrance.
Blackie Rango’s message to trap Mort Mitchell and his mob to death was delivered—but it was delivered through a moll who knew that the Hag had turned on her former benefactors and was plotting with their enemies for their deaths!
The beautiful strains of “Lucia” meant nothing to Carlotta that night. She sat through the performance with the lad because she did not know where to reach Mort until late in the night. And before her eyes, instead of the singers and the brilliant audience, was the picture of Vi Carroll, the woman the moll was determined should feel the weight of her vengeance.
The moll dismissed her escort quickly as the throng poured from the house of music. She raced to a taxicab and hurried to Dapper Dan’s, where she felt sure she would find Mort at midnight. She entered the speakie through the garage and the rear door, and waited for Mort in the secret chamber.
The moll was on her feet, pacing the room, when Mort entered.
“I’ve got the works, Mort,” she cried. “It’s a cold frame, set up by Blackie Rango. Here’s the message from the Hag: ‘The Horton Place, on the Sound—Monday night!’ It’s phony! It’s—”
“How do you know it’s phony?” demanded Mort.
“Because I overheard the message slipped to her, Mort, I heard it slipped to her by the very woman I’ve been hunting, the jane I’ve sworn to find and to repay a certain debt.”
“And who,” asked Mort, eagerly, “was Rango’s messenger? Did you spot her?”
“Yes, I spotted her!” responded the moll, and her eyes were blazing. “And maybe you’ll be interested to know just who she is! You’ve been playing around with your society friends—with a red-headed woman who’s got you dizzy, haven’t you?”
“Never mind that. It’s my business where I go and—”
The moll blazed at him angrily:
“Well, maybe this is your business, too. The red-headed moll who gave the Hag the tip that’s set to put you under the grass went to the opera with the Elberts, your society friends, and is the crookedest snake that ever wore woman’s clothes!”
Mort Mitchell’s amazement held him speechless.
“Not Vi, not Vi Carroll!” he ejaculated. “It can’t be—”
“Fall for the tip, then, sap,” retorted the moll, “but I won’t. If you go near the Horton Place Monday night, Mort, you’ll die from hot lead poisoning. I know!”
Mort grabbed the moll by the wrist and swung her around until she was looking up right into his eyes. His voice was low, but it was full of menace.
“Damn you,” he snarled, “are you on the level, or are you framing Vi Carroll, just to—”
The moll twisted away from him furiously.
“Take it or leave it, you sap,” she snapped, “but I’m going to get HER! And I’ll make you believe it. Listen, Mort, will you believe your red-headed vamp is crossing you before it’s too late? Will you believe me if I prove it to you?”
“Yes,” he answered sullenly, “if you prove it. But, how are you going to do it?”
An inspiration came to the moll.
“I’ve got it, Mort,” she cried excitedly. “You’d kidnap the Hag of the Opera, wouldn’t you—to save yourself?”
“No, but why?”
“Because,” replied Carlotta, “I want her out of my way on the next opera night—because that night I’LL BE THE HAG OF THE OPERA!”
“What?” asked Mort, bewildered.
“Just that,” replied the moll. “
Act just as though we’re falling for that bum tip on the Horton Place, but stay away from there. Then, on the next opera night, grab the Hag, so I can get her clothes. I’ll do her whining act and I’ll get the tip-off from your red-headed friend who’s trying to put the finger on you!”
“You can’t do it, kid,” responded Mort, “you can’t impersonate the Hag. There’s no other like her. Look at that fang which hangs down her lip—that mole!” He almost shuddered when he recalled the evil face of the Hag.
“I’ll do it, Mort,” cried the moll, her eyes snapping. “I’m entitled to a chance this time, for I’ve got a score to even and then, maybe—” Her voice caught, but she went on. “Maybe, Mort, you won’t think so badly of me. Does my scheme go?”
“Yes,” he replied. “We’ll stay just about a thousand miles away from that Horton Place and, then—” His eyes gleamed ominously. “Then, if your dope is right, we’ll see how Mr. Blackie Rango likes lead for supper! It’s up to you, kid!”
He squeezed her arm and the girl stepped closer to him, expectantly. But his mind wasn’t on the moll. He was wondering whether he could successfully fight against the power of Blackie Rango. He left her absently, and walked to the front of the speakie. The girl, her face showing her disappointment, walked from the speakie and went to her room. She slept little, for she was laying her plans, not only to thwart Blackie Rango’s plot against the Mitchell mob, but also to satisfy her ancient feud against the brilliant Vi Carroll.
Mort Mitchell and his mob stayed severely away from the country place of the Hortons on the Sound that Monday night. It was well they did, for hidden in the shrubbery a quarter-mile up the private road which led to the estate was a band of a dozen rods in the employ of Blackie Rango, ready to mow them down. And Blackie Rango was a sadly disappointed vice king when he got the word of the failure. He called Vi Carroll on the telephone and told her in no uncertain words that her job was in peril—that she must make good on her next attempt.
So it was a perturbed Vi who rode with friends slowly toward the opera house entrance on the next opera night. She had her instructions from Blackie and they were explicit. She was to tell the Hag to lure the Mitchell mob to an uptown apartment building with an exciting story of unguarded jewels and an absent family and the following Friday night was to be the time for the massacre.
Again, on this occasion, Vi was a guest of the Elberts. She chatted nervously with Elbert and his wife and another guest as their car approached the glittering opera house. But her mind was not on the small talk. She was watching anxiously for the Hag of the Opera—for she simply had to make good now. Morton Mitchell had to be sacrificed. Her eyes wandered through the crowd as the car approached the entrance. God! Would that damnable Hag never appear? At last she saw the tottering, repulsive figure. It hurried to the side of the Elberts’ auto and Vi lowered the window, coins in her hand to cover the few words she must exchange with the repulsive croon.
The Elberts and their guests looked in wonder as Vi leaned nervously from the car window. Why did Vivian pay so much attention to that pest, that wreck of a woman with the revolting face? But Vi was oblivious to them.
“Dolores,”she whispered vehemently, “they’ve got to fall for this; tell them the Donaghan jewels, a half-million dollars worth, will be absolutely unguarded Friday night. The approach is through the areaway beside the apartment. Make them fall for it.”
She peered intently into the wrinkled face before her. She saw the loathsome fang denting the Hag’s lower lip. She shuddered as she looked at that horrible mole on the crone’s right cheek.
“Yes, dearie,” whined the Hag, accepting the coins Vi handed to her. “They’ll go, all right. I’ll fix that. Now, here’s something for Blackie, and tell him it’s a chance of a lifetime. Mrs. Alex Wilson’s pearls, the great Wilson pearls, will be delivered to their country place Thursday night by automobile, a car with only the Wilson butler and one guard in it. The car will get there at seven o’clock in the night—and if Blackie don’t get them he’ll never get another such a chance at them.”
The Hag was creeping alongside the slowly moving car. Vi heard the message leaning from the window. The Elberts and their other guests wondered at the whispering between the glittering Vi and the loathsome Hag. The Hag, however, leaned close to Vi again.
“Tell Blackie it won’t be easy; tell him to have the whole mob, but for God’s sake not to miss this one!”
She fell back into the crowd as Vi turned back to her hosts apologetically.
“I’m sorry,” she said as their car neared the opera entrance, “but the Hag insists upon my hearing her troubles. I’ve tried to help her; to get her off the street in this pitiful begging, but she insists upon haunting the opera.”
Vi accepted the arm of an escort and the Elbert party moved under the marque to the foyer of the opera house, Vi in possession of two things she cherished—belief that she had set the trap for Mort Mitchell’s mob, and information that would make her even more solid with Blackie Rango.
Hardly had the Elbert party disappeared into the interior of the opera house, however, when the Hag of the Opera House, for the first time in a decade, lost all interest in the opera-going crowd. With surprising quickness for one of her age and dumpy figure, she slipped through the crowd on the pavement, and away from the opera. Ignoring her former benefactors who might still be mulcted, she disappeared down a cross street and boarded an automobile which waited there.
“Quick, Sam,” she snapped to the chauffeur, and Needle Sam did his stuff, taking the short cuts to Dapper Dan’s speak. At the garage, she left the car and traversed the secret way to Dan’s furthest back room and entered. Mort Mitchell was waiting there. He jumped from his chair as the Hag entered. It MUST be the Hag, that dumpy, uncouth figure, that revolting fang which dented her lower lip; that mouse-like mole which blemished the right side of her face.
“Hell!” Mort ejaculated, “I thought—”
The dumpy figure of the Hag straightened and a quick hand pulled the dirty shawl from the head. Another quick motion and Carlotta Wynn, the fake Hag of the Opera, pulled from her mouth an odd dental plate to which was attached the fang which protruded from her mouth. Another pull wrenched from her face the “mole,” the imitation such as marked the face of the real Hag. Quickly she wiped the grease paint from her face—and Carlotta, the moll, stood before the mob leader in the Hag’s habiliments. With an expression of disgust, she ripped the Hag’s rags from her body and stood before Mort in her undies.
“Had to get that filth off me before I could think or talk,” she said calmly. She slipped into a suit which she had left in the speakie room, ordered a drink by pressing a button and turned to face Mort, the mob leader and more than that to Carlotta.
“The trap’s set, Mort,” she said quietly. “Blackie Rango’s greed will not let him pass up a chance at the Alex Wilson’s pearls. If you don’t get him and his gorillas Thursday night, you’d better knuckle to Blackie’s orders—for you’ll never again get such a chance.”
Carlotta explained the set-up “tip” she got from Vivian—and her face contorted with hate as she told it.
“You get Blackie and his apes, Mort,” she said, vindictively, “and while you’re doing it, I’ll pay off my score.”
“You’ll lay off that dame,” Mort replied, angrily, “I’m not satisfied that she’s not regular. Hands off—till I give the word!”
Carlotta laughed—a bitter laugh.
“All right, Mr. Society-Man-About-Town,” she said sarcastically. “I’ll promise you this; I won’t harm a red hair of her head—until I tell you about it first.”
The moll gathered up the discarded clothing of the Hag and threw them into a suitcase. She turned to Mort.
“What’ll you do with the Hag?”
“Keep her prisoner until I decide,” he responded shortly. “Anyway, I’ll hold her till after Thursday. Don’t worry about her.”
“Good night, Mort,” said the moll, moving t
oward the speakie door, “don’t you want to come over to my place for a while and have a nightcap with me? I’m tired and I’ve got some Scotch such as Dapper Dan never dreamed of.” The moll’s voice was pleading, but it drew no response from the handsome mob leader. His thoughts, despite Carlotta’s expose of Vi’s perfidy, still were on the red-haired siren.
“No, kid,” he answered absently. “See you some other time.”
Carlotta slammed the door and went out into the night. More than ever she was determined to “get” the red-haired Vivian Carroll.
Thursday night in that secret back room of Dapper Dan’s speakie. There was an air of tenseness as Mort Mitchell explained for the last time the plans for the night.
“We’ll reach the Wilson place road a half-hour before Blackie’s gang,” Mort said slowly, “and Sam, you’ll hide the car in the cross-road, pointed for a quick getaway. The big tree at the proper spot has been cut so deeply that a push will send it across the road. That’s your job, Barry. When you get the signal, you and Sammy give the tree a shove. It can’t fall, except across the road.
“Our Tommy-guns will be beside that same tree trunk. When the tree falls, you, Barry, and Sam grab them and step to the side, where you can rake Blackie’s car. If his car withstands your fire—I’ll have a surprise package for him. That’s my part of the job. I’ll attend to that and you attend to yours. But, above all else, don’t go near Blackie’s car until I give the word!” Mort turned to Carlotta.
“And you,” he said emphatically, “you’re going along! You’ll sit in the car and wait for us until—”
“But,” interrupted the moll heatedly, “I won’t do anything of the kind—for I won’t be there!”
“Where will you be?” The question came in a snarl from Mort.
“I’ll be calling on your red-haired society girl friend,” mocked Carlotta, “and I’ll be waiting for you in her apartment.” Her voice grew biting with scorn, as she continued:
