Anthony Trent, Master Criminal

CHAPTER VI

FOOLING SHYLOCK DRUMMOND

THE night that he entered Drummond’s house was slightly foggy and visibility was low. He was dressed as he had been when he encountered Drummond at the club. He had seen the banker climb the five steps to his front door at half past twelve. At half past one the lights were switched off in the bedroom on the second floor. At two the door gently opened and admitted Anthony Trent. He left it unlocked and ready for flight. And he memorized the position of the furniture so that hasty flight would be possible.

It was not a big house. The articles of furniture, the pictures, rugs and hangings were splendid. The interior decorators had taken care of that. But he had seen them all in the magazine. Trent knew very well that to obtain such prizes as he sought could not be a matter of certainty. Somewhere in this house was a lot of currency. And it might be in a safe. Old fashioned safes presented few difficulties, but your modern strong box is a different matter. Criminal investigator as he was, he knew one man seldom attempted to dynamite a safe. It was a matter for several men. In itself the technique was not difficult but he had no accomplices and at best it is a matter better fitted for offices in the night silences than a private residence.

He had been told by criminals that it was astonishing how careless rich men were with their money. Anthony Trent proposed to test this. He had made only a noiseless progress on a half dozen stairs on his upward flight when a door suddenly opened, flooding the stairway with light. It was from a room above him. And there were steps coming along a corridor toward him. Feeling certain that the reception rooms leading off the entrance hall were empty, he swiftly opened a door and stepped backward into the room, watching intently to see that he had escaped the observation of some one descending the staircase.

From the frying pan’s discomfort to the greater dangers of the fire was what he had done for himself. He found himself in a long room at one end of which he stood, swearing under breath at what he saw. At the other Mr. William Drummond was seated at a table. And Mr. Drummond held in his hand an ugly automatic of .38 calibre. Covering him with the weapon the banker came swiftly toward him. It was the unexpected moment for which Anthony Trent was prepared. Assuming the demeanor of the drunken man he peered into the elder man’s face. He betrayed no fear of the pistol. His speech was thickened, but he was reasonably coherent.

“It is old Drummond, isn’t it?” he demanded.

“What are you doing here?” the other snapped, and then gave a start when he saw to whom he spoke. “Mr. Bulstrode!”

“I’ve come,” said the other swaying slightly, “to tell you I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said it but the other fellers said it wasn’t right. I’ve come to shake your hand.” He caught sight of the weapon. “Put that damn thing down, Drummond.”

Obediently the banker slipped it into the pocket of his dressing gown. He followed the swaying man as he walked toward the lighted part of the room. He was frankly amazed. Wild as he was, and drunken as was his evening custom, why had this heir to the Bulstrode millions entered his house like a thief in the night? And for what was he sorry?

In a chair by the side of the desk Anthony Trent flung himself. He wanted particularly to see what the banker had hidden with a swift motion as he had risen. The yellow end of some notes of high denomination caught his eye. Right on the table was what he sought. The only method of getting it would be to overpower Drummond. There were objections to this. The banker was armed and would certainly shoot. Or there might be a terrific physical encounter in which the younger man might kill unintentionally. And an end in the electric chair was no part of Trent’s scheme of things. Also, there was some one else awake in the house.

Drummond resumed his seat and the watcher saw him with elaborate unconcern slide an evening paper over the partially concealed notes.

“Just what is on your mind, Mr. Bulstrode?” he began.

“I called you ‘Shylock,’” Trent returned. “No right to have said it. What I should have said was, ‘Come and have a drink.’ Been ashamed of myself ever since.”

Drummond looked at him fixedly. It was a calculating glance and a cold one. And there was the contempt in it that a sober man has for one far gone in drink.

“And do you usually break into a man’s house when you want to apologize?” There was almost a sneer in his voice.

“Break in?” retorted the other, apparently slow at comprehending him, “the damn door wasn’t locked. Any one could get in. Burglars could break through and steal. Most foolish. I lock my door every night. All sensible people do. Surprised at you.”

“We’ll see about that,” said Drummond. He took a grip on his visitor’s arm and led him through the hall to the door. It was unlocked and the burglar alarm system disconnected. It was not the first time that Drummond’s man had forgotten it. In the morning he would be dismissed. Apparently this irresponsible young ass had got the idea in his stupid head that he had acted offensively and had calmly walked in. It was the opportunity for the banker to cultivate him.

“As I came in,” Trent told him, “some one was coming down the stairs. Better see who it was.”

Drummond looked at him suspiciously. Trent knew that he was not yet satisfied that his visitor’s story was worthy of belief. Then he spoke as one who humors a child.

“We’ll go and find out.”

Outside the door they came upon an elderly woman servant with a silver tray in her hands.

“Madame,” she explained, “was not able to eat any luncheon or dinner and has waked up hungry.”

Drummond raised the cover of a porcelain dish.

“Caviare sandwiches,” he grunted, “bad things to sleep on.”

He led the way back to the room. In his scheming mind was a vague scheme to use this bêtise of Graham Bulstrode as a means to win his wife social advancement. Mrs. Clent Bulstrode could do it. Money would not buy recognition from her. Perhaps fear of exposure might. He glanced with contempt at the huddled figure of the heir to Bulstrode millions. The young man was too much intoxicated to offer any resistance.

Tall, huge and menacing he stood over Anthony Trent. There was a look in his eye that caused a certain uneasiness in the impostor’s mind. In another age and under different conditions Drummond would have been a pirate.

“If it had been any other house than mine,” he began, “and you had not been a fellow clubman an unexpected call like this might look a little difficult of explanation.”

Anthony Trent acted his part superbly. Drunkenness in others had always interested him. Drummond watching his vacuous face saw the inebriated man’s groping for a meaning admirably portrayed.

“What do yer mean?”

“Simply this,” said Drummond distinctly. “At a time when I am supposed to be in bed you creep into my house without knocking or ringing. You come straight into a room where very valuable property is. While I personally believe your story I doubt whether the police would. They are taught to be suspicious. There would be a lot of scandal. Your mother, for instance, would be upset. New York papers revel in that sort of thing. You have suppressed news in Boston papers but that doesn’t go here.” He nodded his head impressively. “I wouldn’t like to wager that the police would be convinced. In fact it might take a lot of publicity before you satisfied the New York police.”

The idea seemed to amuse the younger man.

“Let’s call ’em up and see,” he suggested and made a lurching step toward the phone.

“No, no,” the other exclaimed hastily, “I wouldn’t have that happen for the world.”

Over his visitor’s face Drummond could see a look of laboring comprehension gradually stealing. It was succeeded by a frown. An idea had been born which was soon to flower in high and righteous anger.

“You’re a damned old blackmailer!” cried Anthony Trent, struggling to his feet. “When a gentleman comes to apologize you call him a robber. I’m going home.”

Drummond stood over him threatening and powerful.

“I don’t know that I shall let you,” he said unpleasantly. “Why should I? You are so drunk that in the morning you won’t remember a word I’ve said to you. I’m going to make use of you, you young whelp. You’ve delivered yourself into my hands. If I were to shoot you for a burglar I should only get commended for it.”

“Like hell you would,” Trent chuckled, “that old girl with the caviare sandwiches would tell the jury we were conversing amiably. You’d swing for it, Drummond, old dear, and I’d come to see your melancholy end.”

“And there’s another thing,” Drummond reminded him, “you’ve got a bad record. Your father didn’t give up the Somerset Club because he liked the New York ones any better. They wanted to get you away from certain influences there. I’ve got your whole history.”

“Haven’t you anything to drink?” Anthony Trent demanded.

From a cupboard in his black walnut desk Drummond took a large silver flask. He did not want his guest to become too sober. Since it was the first drink that Anthony Trent had taken that night he gulped eagerly.

“Good old Henessey!” he murmured. “Henessey’s a gentleman,” he added pointedly.

“Look here,” said Drummond presently after deep thought. “You’ve got to go home. I’m told there’s a butler who fetches you from any low dive you may happen to be.”

“He hates it,” Trent chuckled. “He’s a prohibitionist. I made him one.”

Drummond came over to him and looked him clear in the eye.

“What’s your telephone number?” he snapped.

Trent was too careful a craftsman to be caught like that. He flung the Bulstrode number back in a flash. “Ring him up,” he commanded, “there’s a direct wire to his room after twelve.”

“What’s his name?” Drummond asked.

“Old Man Afraid of His Wife,” he was told. Mrs. Kinney had told him of the nickname young Bulstrode had given the butler.

Drummond flushed angrily. “His real name? I’m not joking.”

“Nor am I,” Trent observed, “I always call him that.” He put on an expression of obstinacy. “That’s all I’ll tell you. Give me the phone and let me talk.”

It was a bad moment for Anthony Trent. It was probable that William Drummond was going to call up the Bulstrode residence to make certain that his visitor was indeed Graham Bulstrode. And if the butler were to inform him that the heir already snored in his own bed there must come the sudden physical struggle. And Drummond was armed. He had not failed to observe that the door to the entrance hall was locked. When Drummond had spoken to the servant outside he had taken this precaution. For a moment Trent entertained the idea of springing at the banker as he stood irresolutely with the telephone in his hand. But he abandoned it. That would be to bring things to a head. And to wait might bring safety.

But he was sufficiently sure of himself to be amused when he heard Drummond hesitatingly ask if he were speaking to Old Man Afraid of His Wife. The banker hastily disclaimed any intention of being offensive.

“Mr. Graham Bulstrode is with me,” he informed the listener, “and that is the only name he would give. I am particularly anxious that you inform his father I am bringing him home. Also,” his voice sank to a whisper, “I must speak to Mr. Bulstrode when I come. I shall be there within half an hour. He will be sorry all his days if he refuses to see me.” As he hung up the instrument he noted with pleasure that young Bulstrode was conversing amicably with his old friend Henessey, whose brandy is famous.

Drummond had mapped it all out. He would not stay to dress. Over his dressing gown he would pull an automobile duster as though he had been suddenly disturbed. He would accuse Graham of breaking in to steal. He would remind the chastened father of several Boston scandals. He could see the Back Bay blue blood beg for mercy. And the end of it would be that in the society columns of the New York dailies it would be announced that Mr. and Mrs. William Drummond had dined with Mr. and Mrs. Clent Bulstrode.

No taxi was in sight when they came down the steps to the silent street. Drummond was in an amazing good humor. His captor was now reduced through his friendship with Henessey to a silent phase of his failing. He clung tightly to the banker’s stalwart arm and only twice attempted to break into song. Since the distance was not great the two walked. Trent looked anxiously at every man they met when they neared the Bulstrode mansion. He feared to meet a man of his own build wearing a silk lined Inverness cape. It may be wondered why Anthony Trent, fleet of foot and in the shadow of the park across which his modest apartment lay, did not trip up the banker and make his easy escape. The answer lies in the fact that Trent was not an ordinary breaker of the law. And also that he had conceived a very real dislike to William Drummond, his person, his character and his aspirations. He was determined that Drummond should ride for a fall.

A tired looking man yawning from lack of sleep let them into the house. It was a residence twice the size of Drummond’s. The banker peered about the vast hall, gloomy in the darkness. In fancy he could see Mrs. Drummond sweeping through it on her way to dinner.

“Mr. Bulstrode is in the library,” he said acidly. That another should dare to use a nickname that fitted him so aptly filled him with indignation. He barely glanced at the man noisily climbing the stairs to his bedroom, the man who had coined the opprobrious phrase. Drummond was ushered into the presence of Clent Bulstrode.

The Bostonian was a tall man with a cold face and a great opinion of his social responsibilities. The only New Yorkers he cared to know were those after whose families downtown streets had been named.

“I am not in the habit, sir,” he began icily, “of being summoned from my bed at this time of night to talk to a stranger. I don’t like it, Mr. Dummles – ”

“Drummond,” his visitor corrected.

“The same thing,” cried Bulstrode. “I know no one bearing either name. I can only hope your errand is justified. I am informed it has to do with my son.”

“You know it has,” Drummond retorted. “He broke into my house to-night. And he came, curiously enough, at a time when there was a deal of loose cash in my room. Mr. Bulstrode, has he done that before? If he has I’m afraid he could get into trouble if I informed the police.”

It was a triumphant moment when he saw a look of fear pass over Bulstrode’s contemptuous countenance. It was a notable hit.

“You wouldn’t do that?” he cried.

“That depends,” Drummond answered.

Upon what it depended Clent Bulstrode never knew for there came the noise of an automobile stopping outside the door. There was a honking of the horn and the confused sound of many voices talking at once.

Drummond followed the Bostonian through the great hall to the open door. They could see Old Man Afraid of His Wife assisting a young inebriate in evening dress. And his Inverness cape was lined with white silk and over his eyes an opera hat was pulled.

The chauffeur alone was sober. He touched his hat when he saw Mr. Bulstrode.

“Where have you come from?” he demanded.

“I took the gentlemen to New Haven,” he said.

“Has my son been with you all the evening?”

“Yes, sir,” the chauffeur returned.

Drummond, his hopes dashed, followed Bulstrode to the library. “Now,” said the clubman sneering, “I shall be glad to hear your explanation of your slander of my son. In the morning I can promise you my lawyers will attend to it in detail.”

“I was deceived,” the wretched Drummond sought to explain. “A man dressed like your son whom I know by sight came in and – ”

He went through the whole business. By this time the butler was standing at the open door listening.

“I can only say,” Mr. Bulstrode remarked, “that these excuses you offer so glibly will be investigated.”

“Excuses!” cried the other goaded to anger. “Excuses! I’ll have you know that a father with a son like yours is more in need of excuses than I am.”

He turned his head to see the butler entering the room. There was an unpleasant expression on the man’s face which left him vaguely uneasy.

“Show this person out,” said Bulstrode in his most forbidding manner.

“Wait a minute,” Drummond commanded, “you owe it to me to have this house searched. We all saw that impostor go upstairs. For all we know he’s in hiding this very minute.”

“You needn’t worry,” Old Man Afraid of His Wife observed. “He went out just before Mr. Graham came back in the motor. I was going to see what it was when the car came between us.” The man turned to Clent Bulstrode. “It’s my belief, sir, they’re accomplices.”

“What makes you say that?” demanded his master. He could see an unusual expression of triumph in the butler’s eye.

“The black pearl stick pin that Mr. Graham values so much has been stolen from his room.”

“What have I to do with that?” Drummond shouted.

“Simply this,” the other returned, “that you introduced this criminal to my house and I shall expect you to make good what your friend took.”

“Friend!” repeated the outraged Drummond. “My friend!”

“It is a matter for the police,” Bulstrode yawned.

Drummond watched his tall, thin figure ascending the stairs. Plainly there was nothing left but to go. Never in his full life had things broken so badly for William Drummond. He could feel the butler’s baleful stare as he slowly crossed the great hall. He felt he hated the man who had witnessed his defeat and laughed at his humiliation. And Drummond was not used to the contempt of underlings.

Yet the butler had the last word. As he closed the door he flung a contemptuous good-night after the banker.

“Good-night,” he said, “Old Man Afraid of the Police.”

A broken and dispirited man William Drummond, banker, came to his own house. The pockets in which he had placed his keys were empty. There was no hole by which they might have been lost and he had not removed the long duster. Only one man could have taken them. He called to mind how the staggering creature who claimed to be Graham Bulstrode had again and again clutched at him for support. And if he had taken them, to what use had they been put?

It seemed he must have waited half an hour before a sleepy servant let him in. Drummond pushed by him with an oath and went hastily to the black walnut desk. There, seemingly unmoved, was the paper that he had pulled over the notes when the unknown came into the room. It was when he raised it to see what lay beneath that he understood to the full what a costly night it had been for him. Across one of his own envelopes was scrawled the single word – Shylock.

CHAPTER VII

THE DANGER OF SENTIMENT

AFTER leaving Drummond’s house Anthony Trent started without intemperate haste for his comfortable apartment. In accordance with his instructions, Mrs. Kinney retired not later than ten. There might come a night when he needed to prove the alibi that she could unconsciously nullify if she waited up for him.

In these early days of his career he was not much in fear of detection and approached his door with little of the trepidation he was to experience later when his name was unknown still but his reputation exceedingly high with the police. Later he knew he must arrange his mode of life with greater care.

New York, for example, is not an easy city for a man fleeing from police pursuit. Its brilliant lighting, its sleeplessness, the rectangular blocks and absence of helpful back alleys, all these were aids to the law abiding.

He had not chosen his location heedlessly. From the roof on which he often slept he could see five feet distant from its boundary, the wall that circumscribed the top of another house such as his but having its entrance on a side street. It would not be hard to get a key to fit the front door; and since he would make use of it infrequently and then only late at night there was little risk of detection.

Thinking several moves ahead of his game was one of Trent’s means to insure success. He must have some plausible excuse in case he were caught upon the roof. The excuse that suggested itself instantly was a cat. He bought a large and frolicsome cat, tiger-striped and a stealthy hunter by night, and introduced him to Mrs. Kinney. That excellent woman was not pleased. A cat, she asserted, needed a garden. “Exactly,” agreed her employer, “a roof garden.” So it was that Agrippa joined the household and sought to prey upon twittering sparrows. And since Agrippa looking seventy feet below was not in fear of falling, he leaped the intermediate distance between the roofs and was rewarded with a sparrow. Thereafter he used what roof offered the best hunting.

Two maiden ladies occupied the topmost flat, the Misses Sawyer, and were startled one evening at a knock upon their door. An affable young gentleman begged permission to retrieve his cat from their roof. The hunting Agrippa had sprung the dreadful space and feared, he asserted plausibly, to get back.

The Misses Sawyer loved cats, it seemed, but had none now, fearing to seem disloyal to the memory of a peerless beast about whom they could not talk without tear-flooded eyes. They told their neighbor cordially that whenever Agrippa strayed again he was to make free of the roof.

“Ring our bell,” said one of them, “and we’ll let you in.”

“But how did you get in?” the other sister demanded, suddenly.

“The door was open,” he said blandly.

“That’s that dreadful Mr. Dietz again,” they cried in unison. “He drinks, and when he goes out to the saloon, he puts the catch back so there won’t be the bother of a key. I have complained but the janitor takes no notice. I suppose we don’t offer him cigars and tips, so he takes the part of Dietz.”

By this simple maneuver Anthony Trent established his right to use the roof without incurring suspicion.

The Drummond loot proved not to be despised by one anxious to put a hundred thousand dollars to his credit. The actual amount was three thousand, eight hundred dollars. Furthermore, there was some of the Drummond stationery, a bundle of letters and the two or three things he had taken hastily from young Bulstrode’s room. He regretted there had been so small an opportunity to investigate the Bulstrode mansion but time had too great a value for him. The black pearl had flung itself at him, and some yale keys and assorted club stationery – these were all he could take. The stationery might prove useful. He had discovered that fact in the Conington Warren affair. If it had not been that the butler crept out of the dark hall to watch him as he left the Bulstrode house, he would have tried the keys on the hall door. That could be done later. It is not every rich house which is guarded by burglar resisting devices.

It was the bundle of letters and I. O. U.’s that he examined with peculiar care. They were enclosed in a long, blue envelope on which was written “Private and Personal.”

When Trent had read them all he whistled.

“These will be worth ten times his measly thirty-eight hundred,” he said softly.

But there was no thought of blackmail in his mind. That was a crime at which he still wholesomely rebelled. It occurred to him sometimes that a life such as his tended to lead to progressive deterioration. That there might come a time when he would no longer feel bitterly toward blackmailers. It was part of his punishment, this dismal thought of what might be unless he reverted to the ways of honest men. Inasmuch as a man may play a crooked game decently, so Anthony Trent determined to play it.

Many of the letters in the blue envelope were from women whose names were easily within the ken of one who studied the society columns of the metropolitan dailies. Most of them seemed to have been the victims of misplaced bets at Belmont Park or rash bidding at Auction. There was one letter from the wife of a high official at Washington begging him on no account to let her husband know she had borrowed money from him. A prominent society golfing girl whose play Trent had a score of times admired for its pluck and skill had borrowed a thousand dollars from Drummond. There was her I. O. U. on the table. Scrawling a line on Drummond stationery in what seemed to be Drummond handwriting, Anthony Trent sent it back to her. There were acknowledgments of borrowings from the same kind of rich waster that Graham Bulstrode represented. A score of prominent persons would have slept the better for knowing that their I. O. U.’s had passed from Drummond’s keeping. The man was more of a usurer than banker.