At their next appearance on the platform they repeated their former success. There seemed little doubt that they were to be talked of on Broadway, and that meant profitable popularity. Miss Carson was delighted, and Rick found himself echoing her pleasure. Besides he was pleased on his own account, for two reasons: he was going to have no difficulty getting back to Arizona without revealing his disgraceful adventure to the boys, and he was going to get back from Broadway itself at least a part of that which Broadway had taken from him.
After this second performance they would not be needed again for more than two hours, and Rick changed into his street clothes and went out for a walk. It may as well be admitted that his thoughts during this long stroll were mainly of his cabaret partner, but there was another idea in his mind at the same time. He did not leave Broadway, and his eye ran ceaselessly over the faces of the passersby; also he stopped in every café, though he drank not at all. He was hoping that he might run across Mr. Henderson.
At eleven o’clock he was back at Dickson’s. Miss Carson found him in front of the dressing room and informed him that their call would be at 11:24. The immense dining room was filling up rapidly with the supper crowd from the theaters.
Waiters and omnibuses trotted swiftly up and down the aisles, there was a continuous line of new arrivals streaming in from the doors at both ends, and corks were beginning to pop. Two numbers of the supper cabaret had already done their turns, and the sentimental soprano was standing at the rear of the platform squeezing the bulb of an atomizer and half choking herself.
When the time came for the Rope Dance, as Lonny Dickson had decided to call it in his advertising copy for the following day, Rick Duggett was surprised at the ease with which he walked out on the platform, bowed and began loosening his coil of rope.
Miss Carson was daintily performing her short opening dance to the music of the orchestra. Rick got his noose arranged, stepped forward to his position in the center of the platform and started the rope slowly whirling. This was easy. He got it a little higher and went a little faster. There would still be at least a minute before the music cue came for the dancer to leap into the whirling circle, and Rick allowed his gaze to wander over the throng of faces turned toward him from every side. The scene spread out dazzlingly from the raised platform.
All at once Rick’s head became rigid and his eyes fixed themselves in an unbelieving stare. This lasted for half a moment; then suddenly he started and jumped forward and shouted at the top of his voice: “Damn!”
Miss Carson stopped short with amazement in the middle of her dance. The orchestra wavered and was silent. The clinking of knives and forks and the hum of conversation was suddenly hushed all over the room. Rick stood at the front edge of the platform, still staring at something with a wildly inquiring eye, his arm still moving mechanically around his head as the noose whirled in a great circle.
And then those who followed the direction of Rick’s gaze saw a man — a stout, red-faced, middle-aged man — suddenly rise to his feet from a table near the center of the room, cast one quick, startled glance at the cowboy on the platform and dart madly down the aisle toward the door.
The rest happened so quickly that no eye was swift enough to follow it. There was a lightning gleam from Rick’s eye, a powerful, rapid movement of his arm, and the whirling circle of rope shot out and whizzed through the air over the heads of the amazed throng, leaving behind it, like the tail of a comet, the line whose other end was firmly grasped in Rick’s hand.
It was a perfect throw, worthy of the champion of Eastern Arizona. Straight as an arrow the noose went to its mark, dropping with precision over the head of the red-faced man, far across the room. Rick lunged backward, jerking in his arm, and the noose tightened about the man’s body, below his breast.
Rick leaped from the platform and dashed down the aisle, pulling in the rope as he ran to keep it taut. In a second he had reached the side of his captive, thrown him to the floor and sat on him.
“Hello, Henderson,” said Rick calmly to the prostrate form under him. “I want eight hundred dollars and a ticket to Honeville, Arizona, and I want it quick.”
Henderson, panting with exertion, glared and was silent. Not so the other diners. Women were screaming, and two or three of them were trying to faint. Men were calling out, “Get the police!” at the same time crowding down the aisles to be in at the death. Waiters were running distractedly in every direction; their chief pushed his way through, calling meantime to his lieutenants to get the police.
“You’d better act quick, Henderson,” said Rick, shaking the head waiter off. “Somebody’s gone to get a policeman. I don’t like ’em any better than you do, and they’ll have to catch you if they want you. Better come across.”
“D’ye mean that?” gasped Henderson.
“I sure do.”
There was some more quick action then. Rick arose and pulled the noose off. Henderson scrambled to his feet, thrust his hand in his pocket and handed his captor a roll of bills. Rick skinned back the edges, nodded and released his hold. And then you should have seen Mr. Henderson of Kansas get out of that restaurant. He overturned three or four tables and knocked down a dozen men and half as many women, but he certainly got out. “Much obliged!” Rick yelled after him as he disappeared through the door.
Of course Rick lost his job. Worse, Lonny Dickson had him arrested for disturbing the peace, and he was taken to the night court. But the magistrate released him, after a reprimand for not having turned Henderson over to the law.
And what did he care for his job with nine hundred and thirty dollars in his pocket? That is an actual fact; instead of diminishing, the roll had grown. Perhaps Mr. Henderson had made another haul. And the railroad ticket was there too. Rick pocketed the hundred and thirty dollars profit without a word; you who understand ethics, which I don’t, may argue about it if you want to.
Another thing. One o’clock the following afternoon found Rick Duggett eating luncheon — yes, luncheon — with a young lady named Carson. I wouldn’t be surprised if it ended by his marrying the girl and taking her back to Arizona with him. He never did anything by halves.
An Officer and a Lady
Bill Farden had had his eye on the big brick house on the corner for some time. He had worked one in that block — the white frame with the latticed porch farther down toward Madison Street — during the early part of March, and had got rather a nice bag. Then, warned off by the scare and hullabaloo that followed, he had fought shy of that part of town for a full month, confining his operations to one or two minor hauls in the Parkdale section. He figured that by now things would have calmed down sufficiently in this neighborhood to permit a quiet hour’s work without undue danger.
It was a dark night, or would have been but for the streetlamp on the corner. That mattered little, since the right side of the house was in deep shadow anyway. By an oversight I have neglected to place the scene of the story in the vicinity of a clock tower, so Bill Farden was obliged to take out his watch and look at it in order to call attention to the fact that it was an hour past midnight.
He nodded his head with satisfaction, then advanced across the lawn to that side of the house left in deep shadow.
Two large windows loomed up side by side, then a wide expanse of brick, then two more. After a leisurely examination he chose the second of the first pair. A ray from his flashlight showed the old-fashioned catch snapped to.