“Isn’t it true,” he thundered finally, “that you have lent your aid to a half dozen lawless enterprises in this city?”
This precipitated a fiery exchange between Kent and the prosecutor. Soon afterward, court was adjourned for the day.
X
Surrounded by operatives, the girl went quickly from the building and was hurried to a waiting automobile.
“You’ll not be needed to-morrow,” Donaldson said, when he and Somers were seated with her in the machine, with a carload of their associates behind. “No honest jury could fail to acquit Leonardos after hearing your evidence and Merrihew’s.
“Nevertheless,” he added, gravely, “if McHugh hadn’t gone one step too far, if he hadn’t engaged you to sketch the two witnesses, a good man might have been sent to prison. It makes us wonder who is safe, while machines of corruption rule.”
“Where are we going now?” she asked.
“To your lodging house. You must start for New York to-night.”
“But... but I can’t get ready—”
“You’ll have to manage. You must take the midnight train.”
She returned their glances uncertainly.
“You must pack at once, Beatrice,” declared Somers.
“And remain at a hotel, guarded, until train time,” Donaldson added. “Also, be sure to request your employers not to give any information about where you’ve gone. I’ll see that they receive an official request of the same nature.”
“But I’m sure all this — can’t be necessary—” Her voice trembled slightly.
“I dislike to alarm you,” the older man said, “but you should realize your peril. If you can’t imagine what might happen to a young woman who’s done what you have, it would be useless for me to go into details. Not only is it a question of gang revenge; the whole mob will be mortally afraid that you may testify against McHugh later.”
In a dazed way Beatrice peered out the window. Amidst the rush of traffic on the streets, the whole situation seemed grotesquely unreal, unbelievable. Yet in her mind’s eye was the fearful hatred which she had seen in the faces at court.
Bolton of the National Detective Agency, at the wheel, was driving fast. In the mirror they could see the second machine keeping the pace. At length they turned into Beatrice’s street and stopped.
Donaldson and Somers entered with the girl while she informed the landlady of her departure, and waited upstairs in the hall until she had finished packing her trunk and suitcase. Her nervousness made the task difficult.
At length she emerged, dressed for traveling, and contrived a wan smile when she found her protectors on guard.
“We’re now going to the Fenmore Hotel,” Donaldson confided. “You will remain there until eleven twenty, when my chauffeur will call to take you to the depot. But not to a depot in the city. He’ll take you to Framingham.”
“And you must send a man for your baggage,” Somers cautioned. “Don’t, under any circumstances, return to this house!”
Beatrice promised that she wouldn’t.
Three operatives were stationed in the hotel, mingling unobtrusively with the guests. Donaldson and Somers remained in the lobby until the evening was well advanced. It seemed impossible to both men that the underworld could have learned any part of their plans, yet neither was willing to take chances.
At length the two rode in Somers’s coupe to the South Central Depot to complete arrangements for Beatrice’s reservation at Framingham. The curly-haired Merrihew had returned to service in his window, and he saluted them cheerily.
“Watch yourself for a week or two,” Donaldson advised. “I don’t imagine they’ll hold it against you, but one never knows.”
Entering a booth, he called the hotel and left final instructions. Then he inserted another coin and obtained communication with a man who frequently supplied him with information about gang conditions.
The other’s words were not reassuring. Gangland was in a frenzy.
“God help the girl if they find her!” the informer told him.
Donaldson stepped out of the booth and stood twirling his watch chain.
“What did you learn?” Somers asked.
“Nothing very surprising,” was the older man’s response. He glanced to where the New York expresses were being made up.
“Confound it,” he muttered, “I don’t know why I’m nervous! There’s no reason to be.”
A few minutes later, Donaldson suggested that they go back to the vicinity of the lodging house. A man had been left to watch the neighborhood, and both were anxious to learn if he had observed any of the gangsters.
As they neared the street in the West End, Donaldson drew out his watch for the fourth time in a half hour.
“Miss Ashton will be on her way to Framingham in eleven minutes.”
“Once in New York,” opined Somers, “she’ll be safe.”
“Yes; for only three of us know her destination.”
“As a matter of fact,” the youth confided, “I’m expecting to be moved to the New York office of our agency next month.”
“Oh-ho!” said Donaldson with interest.
They turned the corner, parked the coupe. Suddenly Somers gripped his companion’s arm.
“A light!” he whispered. “In that window. That’s the room Beatrice had—”
“There’s some one moving inside,” the other remarked.
“Can it be the man for the baggage, as late as this?”
“No. Probably the landlady,” replied Donaldson. He laughed, to convince himself that their alarm was needless. Yet away in some deep corner of his mind, a dreadful thought was crying out to him. What if the girl had discovered that she had left something — and, despite her promise, had returned for it?
Somers uttered a sharp, husky exclamation. “Look... look there!”
Both men saw it now, plainly — a single shadow thrown dimly against the curtain, a shadow that was swaying, swinging.
Donaldson gave a cry of horror and raced madly toward the door, Somers at his heels. They stumbled up the steps, into the dim front hall; then, halfway to the top of the carpeted staircase, they met two figures descending.
“Where’s Mrs. Winters?” cried Donaldson.
“She’s gone out,” said one of the pair, a big, swarthy man.
“Well, who’s in charge? We must get into Room 7!”
“I’m Mrs. Winters’s brother,” was the dull response. “You the guys for the baggage? Go ahead in — there’s no one there.”
The door, however, was locked. Donaldson drew back and flung his big shoulder against it, and with a splintering sound it crashed inward, revealing a shocking spectacle.
From a steam pipe which ran part way across the ceiling, hung a slender form, smartly clad, the head and throat enveloped in a pillow-slip and bound cruelly with the same stout cord which stretched above.
Dashing forward with a low cry, Somers whipped out a pocket knife; and in an instant they had laid the form upon the bed. While Donaldson worked frantically to loosen the rope, the younger man plunged across the room for water. After a few seconds the suffocating linen was torn away, and two great realities impinged upon Donaldson’s consciousness: that the girl would live, and that she was not Beatrice Ashton.
A woman, wide-eyed, was standing on the threshold.
“Do you know who this girl is?”
“The Lord have mercy!” she burst forth in answer. “If I’d ever dreamed she intended to do this—”
“When did she come?”
Others were crowding to the door.
“W-why — about six o’clock — Miss Ashton left. She telephoned — said she wouldn’t be back — asked me to tell the man to check her baggage on the train that stops at Framingham — so we moved her things downstairs and let this girl have the room—”