Before dawn, Rita left her home and went back to her room on Fourth Street. She fell quickly into a dreamless sleep from which she did not waken till eight o’clock. On raising her shade she saw what she expected: Rudie Breen was waiting on her corner.
She went down at once. He did not look in the least like a man who had committed a murder on the previous evening. His manner betrayed no excitement or anxiety. The inevitable cigarette hung carelessly from his lips.
And now, for the first time, Rita became curious about Rudie’s actions after she had left the office. This, strangely, had up to this given her no concern; she had been too worried about the enormity of the crime to wonder about the steps Rudie had taken to protect himself. But now she was all eagerness to ask questions.
“What’d you do, Rudie? How’d you—?”
“We’ll have breakfast together,” he broke in. “The Chink will fix us up something.”
When they were once more in a private booth at the Chink’s, Rudie talked.
“Mr. J. Stanley Bradshaw has disappeared,” said Rudie. “That’s all.”
“But how—?”
“Me and my friend Harry — the gent you slipped my note to, have fixed it. Bradshaw’s office is on the fourth floor — his outer room window faces a courtyard. Darker than a coal mine that courtyard — and you can get into it from a nice quiet street. Harry brought me a long rope — then he went down into the yard and I lowered the body. We had a closed car waiting. Me, I cleaned up his office. No sign of anything — Simple, what?”
“Where is the body?”
“Well — there’s a nice deep river within four blocks of the Trinidad Building.”
“What do I do?”
“Go to work, as usual. Bradshaw won’t show up. He has no family. Maybe his housekeeper will ask the cops to find him. They may question you and the rest of the office force. All you know is that you left his office last night while he was still out to supper. They’ll think he skipped.”
“Will they find the records that show he’s been doing a fraudulent bus—?”
“Nix. I opened the safe and took that letter from the mine experts.”
“That’s where you pulled a bone, Rudie. You should have left that letter. Then the cops would know he’s a crook and that would motivate the disappearance.
“You’re a wise little cracker,” grinned Rudie. “But it so happens we don’t care a rap what the police think about Bradshaw’s disappearance, and remember this: it’s always a good policy to grab inside information whenever you can; Bradshaw may not have been running this thing alone. See? And if anyone else pops up to continue his scheme — why with the help of that letter, we’ll be able to squeeze ’em. At any rate, them was my sentiments; and besides, orders from The Mogul is orders and — what’s the matter?”
The Mogul! Rita had started and fumbled her cup when the words were spoken. With her very first adventure she had stumbled into a scheme in which The Mogul was involved. So The Mogul had given orders that Bradshaw’s letter was to be taken in any event!
“What’s the matter?” repeated Rudie.
He had noticed her astonishment. It was impossible now to feign indifference. The safest maneuvre, she felt, was to be frankly curious, and also a bit angry because of the meddling of an outsider.
Emphasis was called for. She overcame her natural aversion to profanity and asked boldly, “The Mogul? And who in the hell is The Mogul?”
“That,” replied Rudie pleasantly, “is none of your damn business...”
It was two weeks before the official investigation into the disappearance of Bradshaw got seriously under way. Meanwhile, the employees (besides Rita, there were but three — a bookkeeper, a typist and a file clerk) had hunted up other jobs. Rita was questioned by the police and said that on the evening of Bradshaw’s disappearance she had left the office at seven-thirty while he was out to supper. The hall man remembered seeing Bradshaw come back from supper, but he couldn’t place the time definitely; he guessed it was before eight.
The shareholders in Bradshaw’s mine formed an organization to inquire into the matter. It took several months before they discovered the details of the fraud. But this investigation, since it did not solve the question of Bradshaw’s whereabouts, does not interest us.
We must keep pace with Rita.
VIII
Whatever slight inclination Rita may still have had to confess her part of the crime against Bradshaw disappeared entirely in that moment in which Rudie Breen spoke the words The Mogul.
Now that she had somehow wedged into the scheme of things in which The Mogul was the pivot, her mind became once again a single-track mind; she excluded every thought except those which were directly connected with her problem of running down her quarry.
Rudie Breen was the medium through which she had established contact with The Mogul’s sphere; she therefore clung to Breen tenaciously and encouraged his friendship in the hope that he would try again to involve her in some of his machinations. In this hope she was not disappointed. Rudie did not use her again in his personal ventures. He did more; he introduced her into society — a society which practised crime in its more refined forms. With the explanation that he still owed her something for rescuing him when the police raided the dance hall, and regret that he could not pay the debt himself, Rudie offered to introduce her to “some friends of mine who may be able to do something for you.”
The friends lived in a private, brown-tone house on Eighty-first Street. You have already met the occupants of the house. They are the couple who were with Rudie at the dance hall and who, like Rudie (Rita was not aware of this) escaped while the place was in darkness.
“Meet Mr. Harold Creighton,” introduced Breen. “I think you’ve met before.”
“On the southeast corner of Thirty-ninth Street and Seventh Avenue,” smiled Rita.
Mr. Harry Creighton introduced the statuesque blonde, “Miss Daly — my wife, Judith.”
With no further comment Breen stepped out of the room and Creighton locked the door. He motioned Rita into a rocker and joined his wife on the settee.
“We know everything about you that Breen knows,” began Creighton. “It appears obvious that your head is more than a garage for bonnets — for which reason you interest us. Here’s our proposition: In our — business — we can occasionally use an intelligent, attractive and unattached girl. How we will use you will depend upon the talents you show you possess — more of this some other time.
“It is enough to say now that we work always with a minimum of violence and that we will so arrange matters that the dangerous part of your work will be done by someone else for you. In return for your services we will offer you a room in this house — you pass as Judith’s sister — board, clothing (in this respect you can go the limit) and a fifty-fifty split on the profits of such ventures in which you play the leading role.”
Creighton paused and stroked his glossy, black hair, then easily: “You will, of course, be in a position to squeal, in which case we could suggest to the authorities that you had not told the truth in regard to the disappearance of Mr. Bradshaw. But we wouldn’t. We’d just kill you. Well?”
“I’d like to go into this thing with my eyes open,” replied Rita. “Of course, I can’t expect you to take me entirely into your confidence at the present time. In one of our talks Breen spoke of The Mogul. You give me an earful about this gent and I’ll give you my answer.”