"Let her take a room in a second-rate rooming-house—not a regular thieves' hang-out, because Canada Annie has never established relations with the gentry in New York, but the sort of house where they wouldn't be too particular whom they took in. The house must have a telephone. When she is ready, let her advertise her address and telephone number by means of a 'personal' in the Sphere. Let her advertise a street five blocks north of the actual street, the number of the house, five numbers more than the actual number, and the telephone number five numbers more than the actual number.
"I can't say just how long it may be before she hears from me. Of course, she can't stay waiting in her room all the time, but tell her to be here at twelve o'clock noon every day, so that there will be one moment when I will know that I can find her.
"Got all that, old girl? Can't stop to explain now. I have a guardian angel with me. Be good to yourself. Everything's going fine. Melanie Soupert is alive! I have seen her and talked with her. Bye-bye."
I will not dwell at length on my feelings upon receiving this. I was relieved, and at the same time I was filled with fresh terrors on behalf of my dear mistress. Though she had treated things lightly, as she always does, I understood well enough from her crisp, rapid sentences, that the affair had reached a stage of the most critical importance. It was agonising to be told so little.
This was not business which could be discussed over the telephone, so I put on my hat and went directly to the address of Madge Caswell, whom I remembered as an attractive young woman, who hid under a jocular manner a very real talent for our sort of work. It was a relief to have the errand to do.
Miss Caswell lived in a boarding-house on East Thirty-Sixth Street. I was filled with dismay upon being told at the door that she was sick in bed. But as I mounted the stairs I consoled myself with the reflection that every one gets sick and gets well again, and the great majority of sicknesses are forgotten next day. I was still further reassured when I saw her sitting up in bed, the picture of cheerfulness, in a mauve boudoir cap.
But at the sight of me her face fell. "You've come to offer me work!" she said. "If that isn't just my luck!"
"You can't take it?" I said with a sinking heart.
She shook her head. "Doctor's just been here. Ordered me to the hospital for an op. to-morrow."
I sat suddenly on a chair. "Good heavens! what will I do?" I murmured. "My mistress can communicate with me, but I have no way of sending her word. Her orders have got to be carried out!"
"Important case?" asked Miss Caswell, full of concern.
"It's more than that!" I said. "Madame Storey's own safety depends on it!"
"Oh, what rotten luck!" she murmured, digging her knuckles into her cheeks. "And my appendix won't wait another day."
"Can you suggest anybody?" I asked helplessly. "It must be somebody on whom we can depend absolutely." I asked it helplessly, because, among operatives, the young woman who was sufficiently cool, resourceful and clever, scarcely existed. Madge Caswell was one in a thousand.
"How about a woman of forty?" she asked.
I shook my head.
"Haven't you anybody on your lists?"
"Nobody I would dare trust with this."
"What is wanted?"
I told her.
"Why don't you do it yourself?" she asked off-hand.
Now the same thought was lurking deep within me, and it threw me into confusion when she dragged it forth into the light. "Oh, I couldn't! I couldn't!" I cried in a panic.
"Why not?"
"I couldn't! Mme. Storey says I have no talent for impersonation."
"But you have brains. And the necessity of the case would spur you on to make up for your lack of talent!"
"I wouldn't dare take the responsibility!" I said, walking up and down the room in my agitation. "The least slip would be fatal to all of us."
"Now look here," she said sensibly. "If you took this job, you couldn't fail Mme. Storey, could you?"
"Of course I couldn't!" I cried.
"Well, there you are!" she said, smiling. "It means everything to you, whereas to an ordinary operative it means fifty or seventy-five a week."
I suddenly saw that there was no problem facing me, because there was only one course possible for me to take, and in that moment my panic subsided. "You're right," I said. "Such as I am, I'd be better than some one we didn't know."
"Good work!" said Madge heartily. "Now listen; you get your stuff together to-morrow, and I'll go have my appendix lifted. On the following day you come to me at the Good Samaritan Hospital in character, see? and I'll criticise your make-up. You come to me every day until Mme. Storey is ready to use you, and I'll coach you. It'll be better than flowers or candy for me."
What an admirable girl she was!
Three days later I was established as Canada Annie Watkin in a meagrely furnished bedroom on Twenty-Fourth Street, west of Eighth Avenue. Technically speaking, it was a respectable house, but the landlady had a tolerant eye, and all sorts of odd fish came and went. My appearance was so subtly changed, that had I met my dearest friend on the street, she would have said: "Why, doesn't that look like Bella Brickley!" without a thought of identifying me with myself. Like Mme. Storey herself, Madge Caswell believed that in the matter of disguising yourself, character was much more important than make-up. I had gone back to the unbecoming style of hairdressing that I had used when I first went to Mme. Storey—1900 style with a small bun; and in second-hands shop I had got me a suit and hat which made me look like a person whose only object in dress was to make herself inconspicuous. My new character was my continual study. I presented myself as a cagey little woman of uncertain age, with a close mouth and a wise eye. I cultivated the trick of looking down my nose, and sucking in one cheek. I used just a little make-up to give myself a pallid look.
Well, I had advertised my address according to instructions, and there I was waiting, scarcely ever daring to leave my room, for fear the call might come when I was out. I had left Crider in charge of the office, and I kept in telephonic communication with him. It was frightfully wearing on the nerves, because, you see, I didn't know of what nature the call would be; I couldn't prefigure the situation that I would presently be obliged to meet.
It came with great suddenness—and not by telephone, as I expected. Somebody knocked on my door, and when I opened it, I beheld my dear mistress, alias Jessie Seipp, standing there, with her outrageous bush of blonde hair, and her flashy, becoming costume. Behind her was a huge man, whose shoulders seemed to stoop under the weight of their brawn and muscle. He looked like a thug, neatly dressed. I turned a little giddy.
I leave you to guess what her feelings must have been at the sight of me. Nothing of it showed, of course. Without the pause of a fraction of a second, she caught me by my two elbows, and gave me an affectionate little shake.
"Hello, Annie!" she cried. "Gosh! it's good to see your ugly mug again! How are yeh, Annie? I telephoned old woman Schwimmer the other day, to get your address."
"Steady! Steady!" I whispered to myself. "Yes, she told me you called up," I replied in the colourless voice I was cultivating. "I was hoping you'd call."
"Well, here I am, large as life, and twicet as natural. This is my friend, Bill Combs. C'mon in, Bill, you boob, and close the door after yeh."
"Please to meet you," said the big man sheepishly. He looked me over with a comic expression of distrust.
"Cheer up, Bill, she won't bite yeh!" sang Jessie: adding to me: "His brain can't accommodate any but the simplest ideas, and he's surprised to find that you ain't another fly kid like me."
"A-ah!" growled the big man, not at all displeased by her raillery. I saw in a glance that he was head over heels in love with her. That great coarse Hercules! Oh, my Lord! this added another perilous element to the situation.
There was but the one chair in the little room, which Bill took, Jessie and I sat side by side on the bed. She took my hand in hers, and flung her other around my sho
ulders. "No, Annie ain't a bit like me," she rattled on. "That's what I like about her. Takes all kinds to make a world. Annie's one of the cool and steady kind. She ain't got nobody, and I ain't got nobody, and so we 'dopted each other, like. Gee! it's good to see you, old girl!"
We smiled point-blank at each other, but exchanged no meaning glance. How strange! how strange it was to be playing a part with her. How I burned to know if she was satisfied with me, I could read nothing in her eyes but a bright, impersonal excitement; the excitement of an artiste in full activity. I was careful to keep my eyes empty.
I realised that I must not play too passive a part, and at the first pause in Jessie's headlong rattle, I said: "I was worried about you, kid. I read in the paper that you were sent up to Woburn for trying to rob Mrs. Cornelius Marquardt. That was a bright trick."
"Sure," said Jessie, "what they call a foxy pass, eh? I was sufferin' from the heat."
"How did you get out?" I asked.
"Oh, I just saw an opening, and I took it," said she. "It was just a lucky chance."
I realised that questions were indiscreet, yet I thought Canada Annie would ask a few. "Where are you now?"
"With friends," said Jessie demurely. "We ain't settled in yet, so I can't give you my address."
"Oh, excuse me," I said.
"Nothin' to excuse, Bill and me kin come to see you sometimes—can't we, Bill? ... Bill's my chaperon."
"If we don't get too busy," growled the big man.
"And what are you doin' with yourself?" said Jessie; "livin' on your income, as usual, I suppose.... This girl's lucky," she added to Bill; "she cleaned up all Montreal two years ago, and don't have to work no more."
"Well, not quite that," I said modestly.
"Where did you two first meet?" asked Bill. I could see that he was not at all disposed to be friendly towards me; not that he suspected I was other than I seemed; he was simply jealous of the fuss that Jessie made over me.
"I'll tell you," said Jessie quickly, "and you can see if I haven't got cause to stick to her.... One day, last spring, I was fired out of my job as usual, and I was broke as usual. I wanted to go to a ball that night, and I hadn't no silk stockings to wear. I just made up my mind I'd help myself to a pair offen the counter. I went into a big department store, and there they were ready to my hand, piled deep in a long tray; special sale; women crowdin' round three deep. It looked too easy. I was just slippin' out a coupla pair, when a voice whispered in my ear: 'Drop them! The store-detective is watchin' you!' It was Annie beside me.
"Well, I dropped them, you bet, and walked away careless. She followed, and when we got to a different part of the store, we talked. 'You big fool!' she said, 'don't you know they always have a detective watching them counters?' 'How was I to know that?' I says. She says: 'Well, if you're goin' into the business, you ought to learn the rudiments first. Makes me sore to see a girl asking to be put away.'"
"She give me the rough side of her tongue, but I took to her just the same, and we walked out together. We sat down in Bryant Square and talked some more. She give me a line just like the Tombs Angel: for God's sake to give up that sort of stuff, it wasn't worth it, and get me some honest work to do. It was wasted on me; I told her I was off honest work for the rest of me life. Honest work had never done nottin' for me. I pricked up my ears when she said she'd been through it all, and it didn't pay. And I pestered her until she said at last, 'Oh well, if I was determined, she'd give me a little proper instruction.'
"Well, it turned out she had a little job all planned out, and she would be glad of a bit of help with it. It was a hotel job, She had spotted a certain couple who were stopping at the Richland, and by a simple trick she'd got an impression of their key under the clerk's nose, and had a duplicate made. Now she wanted somebody to stand watch for her, while she entered their room. She herself had taken a room at the Richland.
"We loafed around across the road from the Richland, and she pointed out the couple to me when they came out. They didn't look like real swell folks, and I wondered why she'd picked on that partic'lar couple, but I didn't say nottin'. Well, ten minutes later it was all over. She went into their room, while I waited around in front of the elevators with a glass in my hand. If either of the couple came up, I was to drop the glass on the marble floor, see? Annie said that would give her plenty time to get out of their room, and around the corner of the corridor at the back.
"But they didn't come back, and she worked undisturbed. She didn't get much, for it seemed they carried their money and valuables on them. Some real pretty studs and cuff-links, which I gave to my fella; a small diamond pin; a handsome cape with a fur collar, and oh Gee! Half a dozen pairs of silk stockings. She handed over the lot to me.
"Then the story came out. She told me she was Canada Annie, and she'd made a big clean-up in Montreal a year ago, and this guy was a lieutenant of police, or whatever they call it, who had come down to New York to look for her. So she entered his room, picked what was worth carryin' away, and left her card on the bureau. 'Compliments of Canada Annie.' That's her!"
You will observe how cunningly my mistress helped me out by the telling of this story. It established my character better than I could have done it. Bill Combs looked at me with respect, if not with liking.
"Real neat work," he said.
I perceived that some comment was looked for from me, so I said in the dry manner that I affected: "Oh, that was nothing. He was such a conceited fool he made me tired. I wanted to take him down a peg."
After that the conversation became general. Big Bill Combs became almost friendly. My mistress was a tower of strength to me. She played up to me so cleverly; she was always right there to help me out, and I lost my fear of not making good. I believe I did quite well. All the time I was anxiously wondering what was the real object of this visit. What was required of me?
Finally Bill said: "We gotta go, Jess."
And still it had not transpired.
The so-called Jessie went to the mirror of my bureau, as a woman does, and fluffed up her hair. "I look a sight," she remarked. She pulled open the top drawer in the most natural way in the world, and rummaged in it. "I suppose you haven't got any mascara," she said.
"No," said I.
She shut the drawer with a bang. "Oh, you don't care how you look!" she said.
"Well, looks is not my strong point," I said, looking down my nose.
"Bill, will you lend me the money to get some make-up going home?" she asked.
"Sure," he growled.
Suddenly, I got it. Mme. Storey's hands had been hidden for a moment in the drawer. She had left something there for me!
They left with good-byes, and promises to come again. As soon as I heard the front door close behind them, I ran to the bureau drawer, and there, sure enough, under my things, I found a folded square of white paper. Opened up, it proved to be a letter written on a single large sheet of shiny white paper, wrapping-paper, from the look of it. It was written in pencil in a laborious, unformed hand.
I shall not reproduce it here. Indeed, I had no business to read it myself, but how could I help it, since it bore neither address, salutation, nor signature. From the context, it was certainly from a woman to a man, but what woman or what man I had no means of knowing. In its simplicity, in its very crudity inspired with deep, deep feeling, it was the most touching letter I ever read. It made my breast ache.
The explanation came next day by telephone.
"Did you find the letter?"
(My mistress's soft, distinct tones instantly told me that she was telephoning from within that house.)
"Yes."
"Seal it in an envelope, and deliver it to Mrs. Henry Harvest, who keeps a stationery store at — Columbus Avenue. It is for her son. Did you get that?"
"Yes."
"You did splendidly yesterday. Ta-ta."
"Wait, let me explain," I said.
"It doesn't matter, my dear. I'm satisfied." And the circuit closed.
I lost no time in starting for Mrs. Harvest's. Every older inhabitant of New York knows the little "stationery" stores of upper Manhattan, now almost driven out by more modern business methods. Rather pathetic little stores, specialising in the trifling and unprofitable wares that appeal to school-children, and ekeing out a bare existence by the sale of newspapers. Mrs. Harvest's was one of the survivals. Nothing in her store had been changed in twenty-five years, I am sure.
Mrs. Harvest herself was a plump and comely woman, who ought to have beamed with good nature, but looked harassed and subdued. There were children in the shop when I entered, and though she insisted on serving me first, I insisted with even more firmness that she serve them. When they were out of the place; I produced my letter, now in an envelope.
"For your son," I said.
What a searching look she gave me! She took the letter from me with a painful eagerness—yet she hated it. One could tell that by the way she handled it, and by the look of resentment that twisted her face.
"He ain't here," she said. "But maybe I can get hold of him. Will you come back in an hour for the answer."
"Well ... I'm not sure that I can get an answer through," I said.
"Well, come back anyhow, on the chance."
When I entered the shop the second time, I saw that Mrs. Harvest had been weeping. And indeed, at the sight of me, the tears began to run afresh. She pressed my hand, and murmured not very coherently:
"Oh, I'm real glad you brought it! I hate that girl! I can't help it. I'm his mother. But it's done him good, it has. He's like his old self again."
She led me into a little homely sitting-room back of the shop. A young man, who was writing at the table, jumped up as we entered. He was blond and slender, and uncommonly good-looking. He had the wary look of those who live in danger. That look on a man's face is thrilling to a woman.
MRS1 The Under Dogs Page 18
