Stamped in Gold/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V.
JOSE BERTRAM.
THE girl whom Peter Correlly saw when he arrived, in the attempt to straighten out the ghastly error into which the store detective had fallen, made up in vitality and vehemence all that she missed in inches. With most women anger, or, indeed, the expression of any strong emotion, has a tendency to uglify; but this girl, white with anger though she was, firm and straight as were the lines of her scarlet lips, outthrust as was the daintiest, roundest chin, had qualities of beauty which were wholly unfamiliar to the young man who stood before her, hat in hand.
To say that he stood was to misdescribe his attitude. Rather did he droop in her direction. And she, looking up at his angularities, his tired stoop, had a first impression of a thin, yellow face, two weary eyes, and a drawling voice which seemed too tired to continue the conversation which he began.
“The chief is extremely sorry, Miss Bertram, that you have been put to this indignity, and has sent me down straight away.”
She nodded, tight-lipped, strangely and violently hostile to all the forces of law and order, and slowly and deliberately pulled on a glove—a glove which she had a few moments before as slowly and deliberately pulled off.
“It is monstrous that I should be detained here one moment,” she said. “It is the sort of disgraceful thing which could only occur in New York. To hold me for a moment on the evidence of that man”—she pointed to a very dejected little man who cowered under the fire of her scorn—“is laughable.”
“My dear lady” began Peter.
“I'm not your 'dear lady'!” she flamed. “I will not have your insolence and patronage tacked on to the other outrage. My father will be here soon, and we will go right along to the police commissioner and make a complaint.”
Peter sighed, and when Peter sighed it was less of an incident than an occurrence. He closed his eyes, and every line of his body testified to his unhappiness. Even the girl, flaming as she was, stared and would have laughed in spite of her anger.
Peter turned to the officer in charge.
“You can release this lady. She is well known to us and to the police.”
If she was hesitating between being pacified or inflamed still further, this last speech decided her. For the moment she could find no words. Her lips trembled, and then:
“How dare you say I am known to the police!”
“Listen!” Suddenly Peter's languor had gone. “This city contains pretty nearly six million democrats,” he said. “They may not all vote the democratic ticket, but are democrats according to the constitution in the sense that no one person is better than any other. A mistake like this is bound to occur. You go into a store where you are not known, you pass a counterfeit note, and you're pinched. And who in the name of Sam Hill are you that you should not be pinched if you attempt to pass a counterfeit note? You act, Miss Bertram, as though you were something better than ordinary people, and should have treatment which the other classes of human beings who occupy this city should be denied. If you think that's American, why, you're entitled to your opinion. I came here to release you. I treat you courteously, and you hand me the same kind of atmosphere that I'd get if I were raiding a pool room.”
She looked at him speechless, her mouth and eyes open.
“In Petrograd,” continued Peter, “in the days when the czars were going some, I guess the czarina would have fussed on something like you if Protopopoff had dropped in on the czarina and said: 'Mrs. Romanoff, you're pinched!'”
Here was an officer of the law—a common or an uncommon officer—standing before her, hands on hips, feet apart, glowering down at her and hectoring—yes, bullying—her, the daughter of one of the first business men in the city, if not a millionairess, the daughter of a millionaire; a social leader and a veritable autocrat in her own three or four homes. When he stopped she answered—meekly, it sounded to those who had only heard the imperious note:
“I'm not asking for any better treatment than any other woman would receive. It was a stupid mistake for the salesman to make, but it is true that I have never been in this store, and I shouldn't have gone in only I wanted to buy some things for my maid's birthday, and she told me she had set her heart upon a gown she had seen here. But I really don't see why you should lecture me,” she said with a return of something of her old tone.
“I am paid to lecture people,” said Peter calmly, “'to protect the children of the poor and punish the wrongdoer.' This”he indicated the nervous little manager who had been instrumental in arresting the daughter of George Bertram—“this,” said Peter solemnly, “is one of the children of the poor.”
She looked for a moment at the little man, and then her sense of humor overcame her annoyance and she laughed till the tears stood in her eyes.
“You're quite right,” she said. “I have been rather foolish and bad tempered, and I'm afraid I have given everybody a lot of trouble. Here is daddy.”
She walked quickly across the room to meet her father. George Bertram was a man of fifty-five, trimly bearded, perfectly dressed, a man who gave the impression that he was everlastingly wearing brand-new clothes. From the tips of his polished boots to the crown of his polished hat he was a model of all that a tailor would like a man to be.
His face, despite his fifty-five years, was smooth and unlined. His big, prominent eyes gave the keynote to his character, for they beamed benevolence, A mild, easy, man, he was nevertheless a brilliant financier, who, from the moment he passed through the gun-metal grille of the Interstate Bank to the moment he emerged to his limousine, had no other thought in his mind which did not begin and end with the dollar mark.
“My dear, my dear,” he said mildly, “this is extremely unfortunate. How did it happen?”
“It was my own fault, daddy,” said the girl. “I just got mad when I ought to have been sane and explained to the store manager who I was.”
“But what did you do?” he asked, and when she had explained he looked at her with amazement.
“A counterfeit!” he said incredulously. “But, my dear, how on earth did you get counterfeit money?”
She laughed. “From your bank, daddy. I called on my way to the store.”
“Let me see the bill,” he said.
The offending bill was produced, and George Bertram examined it carefully.
“Oh, yes, this is a counterfeit,” he said. “Did you have any other money?”
She opened her bag and took out three or four bills.
“These are all right,” said the banker, “but there may be a lot more of this bad money in the bank. I'm surprised that Dutton should not have detected it. My cashier”—he addressed Peter—“is one of the cleverest men in the banking business, and it is simply incredible that he should have passed this bill across the counter without detecting it. You are sure you had no money in your bag when you came out?”
The girl hesitated.
“I think I did, now that you mention it, daddy.”
She counted the roll of bills.
“Of course I did—I had one bill. Now where did I get that? Somebody changed a bill for me. Wasn't it” Her brows met in thought.
“I don't think it matters very much for the moment where you got it, Miss Betram,” said Peter good-humoredly, “but if you can trace it back, I shall be glad if you can give me some information. I will call on you to-morrow.”
She laughed. It was a pretty laugh, as Peter admitted.
“Please come,” she said. “I would like you to finish your lecture on the rights of the democracy.”
“The right” repeated Mr. Bertram, puzzled.
“Oh, a little talk that Mr.—I do not know your name.”
“My name is Peter Correlly; you had better have my card,” said Peter. “I'd be glad if you'd return it to me when you've done with it. I've only six, and they've got to last me out. You see,” he said, as they strolled to the door, “I very seldom need any other introduction than a pretty little shield.”
“You're a very strange man,” she said, as she held out her hand at parting.
She was interested in him and piqued by the knowledge that he was not particularly interested in her. His vocation and his queer drawl notwithstanding, he spoke like a cultured man; who but a cultured man would quote the lines from the Bible about the children of the poor? and he had that rare quality of self-command which she, despite her own impetuous nature, admired.
“You won't forget to come and see me?” she said, leaning over the side of the car. “You can improve my mind and morals.”
“I don't know that either needs improving,” was Peter's parting shot, and, looking back as the car sped on its way, she was annoyed to discover that he had not stood and gazed after her, but had turned his back and was slouching off down the street.
“As for you, Mr. Rayburn,” Peter addressed the owner of the store, “you've got out of a mighty bad fix. Anybody but a man suffering from myopia, or altogether batty, could see that that lady was not the kind who would pass phony notes for the fun of it.”
“But, Mr. Correlly,” the storekeeper answered, “I'm always getting that sort of trouble, and my losses this year in my two businesses are simply colossal. I've never met Miss Bertram before, but she's a customer of mine.”
“You said she's never been to your store,” said Peter.
“That's true, but I have a book store downtown, in the name of Mendelsheim. I bought it from Mendelsheim's son when the old man died. She is a good customer of mine there. I hope you're not going to mention the fact that I'm the boss, Mr. Correlly?”
Peter shook his head.
“She has all the new books that come out sent up to her, and she makes a selection. I wouldn't have had this thing happen for a thousand dollars—no, not for ten thousand dollars. We've had enough trouble this year. Why, do you know that that book store of mine was burgled two months ago, and every book in the store was practically destroyed!”
“Breathe your sorrows to some one else,” drawled Peter. “Anyway, your story doesn't sound good. None of the burglars I know have literary tastes until they're jugged.”
“But it's true, Mr. Correlly,” said the man. “I thought you'd heard about it. You never saw such a mess in your life as I found when I went into the store in the morning. The books were scattered all over the place, every shelf was empty”
“And the safe was opened and the accumulated savings of a lifetime were gone?” suggested Peter,
“That's the funny thing—the safe wasn't touched.”
Correlly swung round. The bizarre in crime was especially interesting to him.
“Do you mean to tell me that the burglars who broke in to steal remained as rust and moths to destroy?” he demanded.
“I don't know anything about moths,” said the merchant hazily. “All I know is that they did more damage than a fire would have done, and I got no insurance.”
Peter produced his notebook.
“Date?” he said laconically.
The man gave the date without hesitation. He had reason to remember it.
“Good!” said Peter as he covered two pages with his new entry. Then: “Would you let me examine your books for the week before and after the burglary occurred?”
“Surely, Mr. Correlly,” said the other.
“I'll come along to your store at five o'clock this evening,” said Peter.
He went out of the store in a very thoughtful frame of mind. He took a taxi to the hospital where Wilbur Smith lay. His inquiries brought satisfactory news.
“Yes, Mr. Wilbur Smith has recovered consciousness, and I do not think that the fracture is a very bad one,” said the surgeon in charge. “Do you wish to see him? I don't think you'll do him any harm.”
Wilbur Smith lay in a private ward, his head swathed in bandages. There was a gleam of satisfaction in his one undamaged eye when he caught sight of the lanky figure in the doorway.
“Hullo!” he growled. “Have you come to take my dying statement?”
“You look pretty wholesome for one who is no longer with us,” said Peter, pulling up a chair to the bedside. “Well, they got you!”
“Huh!” said Wilbur disgustedly. “I was the easiest thing that ever happened, Peter, They had two taxis planted waiting for me. I took the first.”
“It doesn't seem possible that that sort of thing could be done in broad daylight right here in the heart of New York,” said Peter.
“That's where it was done,” retorted the other, “and it was dead easy. No taking me by unfrequented paths, no racing me away into the country, nothing to arouse the slightest suspicion, except that we were taking short cuts; then suddenly the car turns into a garage, the doors of the garage are closed behind us, and I jump out. Before I can pull a gun I'm plugged. That's about all I remember.”
“Afterward they deposit you in a vacant lot, far from the madding crowd,” said Peter. “I guess they thought you were dead. Did you see any face?”
“None,” said Wilbur definitely. “I have no recollection except of being in an empty shed and seeing a man come toward me from the far end with a can of petrol in his hand. That was probably done,” he explained, “to allay my suspicions. While I am making up my mind what to do, and what it is all about—plunk! They took the money, of course?”
Peter nodded,
“And you are on the job?”
Peter nodded again. “I have one or two new ends to the case,” he said, “and they're all pretty interesting.”
He related what had happened to the Uplifter who suddenly found herself possessed of a fortune beyond her dreams. Then he told the story of Fatty, and Wilbur Smith pursed his damaged lips.
“It is a weird case,” he said, “the weirdest within my experience. Honestly, what do you make of it?”
Peter walked to the door of the private ward and closed it.
“I can't say that it is altogether novel to me,” he said. “I am referring particularly to the picture of Hades that's stamped on the back of the bills. That is sheer devil cult.”
“Devil cult!” repeated the other in wonder,
“Sure, devil cult!” said Peter confidently. “There are dozens of them in the world—genuine devil worshipers. You think I'm mad, but I can bring chapter and verse to prove what I say is true. There was a cult in Italy exposed during the Camorra trial. There was a cult in the north of England—a regular religious sect, conducted without any obscenity, and in a deep religious spirit. There are half a dozen cults in Russia, particularly in South Russia, each with its priests and ritual. There's a sect in Asia Minor”
“But” began Smith.
“Wait a moment,” insisted Peter. “I want to tell you this, that it is an invariable feature of these devil worshipers that they put into circulation the image of their deity. The north-of-England crowd always used to send their totem out printed on envelopes, the design being covered by the postage stamp. The Nick worshipers of south Russia have the design burned into the soles of their boots, and I think it was in Russia where the practice was instituted of stamping the object of their veneration upon the backs of paper money.”
Wilbur Smith was silent.
“You sound as though you were making it up, but I know you wouldn't do that,” he said after a while. “Where did you get your information?”
“Well,” drawled the other, “one lives and learns. I've been chasing fakers all my life, but even if I hadn't been, I could have procured a lot of information from any encyclopedia on the subject of demonology.”
“Then you think”
“I think there's a cult in America, but it is working out quite different from any other of its kind I have ever read about.”
“Any news of Alwin?” asked the man on the bed, incautiously turning his head and wincing with the pain of it.
“No news at all. I've an idea that they have Alwin.”
“I think he's dead,” said Wilbur quietly. “Peter, I'm going to get out of this bed as soon as these darned ribs of mine will behave, and I'm going after the men who took Frank Alwan, and if it takes me the rest of my life I'm going to find the man who plugged him—and believe me, I'll get him!”
“You're a savage, ruthless fellow,” said Peter with his characteristic sigh. “If you'd only devote your mind to thoughts of a better and brighter life”
“Cut that out,” said Wilbur. “But come again. I want some more of that devil dope.”
“I'll be able to give you a whole lot soon,” said the other, picking up his hat. “I'm seeing old Professor Cavan this afternoon.”
“Cavan? Who the devil is Cavan?”
Peter made a gesture of despair.
“The people you do not know in this world would fill a pretty big directory. Do you mean to tell me you don't know Cavan?”
“I mean to say that I have never heard of the man,” said the exasperated Smith. “When did you hear about him?”
“Yesterday,” said Peter shamelessly, and made his exit.
He shared the actor's passion for getting off with a good line.