V.
Mother Margot
No challenge questioned Jimmie Dale's entry—there was only the strident voice of Little Sweeney from the rear room. The shop itself, as he had expected, was not the vantage point chosen by either of Little Sweeney's two confederates.
Jimmie Dale stole forward to the rear of the shop, where through an open door there showed a glimmer of light, which, though it seemed to be strangely obstructed, evidently came from some sort of passage that connected the living quarters of the house with the shop; and here, slipping in behind the single counter that the shop boasted, he listened. Little Sweeney was still bawling at the top of his voice.
“I've been thinking it over for the last few days,” said Little Sweeney.
“Please speak a little louder.” Mrs. Kinsey's voice came plaintively through the darkness.
“Damn it!” said Little Sweeney in low and fervent tones; and then in a veritable yell: “I said I'd been thinking it over! Thinking it over! Our little talk, you know, of a few days ago, about buying out your confectionery business. I promised to come back and let you know what I was going to do about it.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Kinsey.
“Well,” shouted Little Sweeney, “I've decided to take a chance and buy it, and I've brought you a hundred dollars to bind the bargain.”
“But I couldn't think of selling it for a hundred dollars,” protested Mrs. Kinsey feebly.
“Not SELLING it, just to bind the bargain,” screamed Little Sweeney. “I'll give you the rest of the thousand when we sign the papers.”
“Would you please speak a little louder,” said Mrs. Kinsey anxiously. “Sometimes my hearing ain't quite so good as it used to be.”
“I'll keep your secret!” gritted Little Sweeney in a hoarse whisper; then full-lunged again: “Here's a hundred-dollar bill. You don't even need to give me any receipt for it. I'll come across with the rest before the week's out. It's just to show that I'm in earnest, and to keep anybody else from buying the business.”
“I don't think anybody else would buy it,” said the old lady ingenuously.
“You've said a mouthful!” was Little Sweeney's sotto voce retort.
“But I'm so glad,” said Mrs. Kinsey wistfully. “I'll be so glad, because I can't move around as spry as once I could. And I was afraid I'd—I wouldn't be able to go on with it much longer.”
“That's all right, Mrs. Kinsey,” bellowed Little Sweeney cordially. “I guess we're both satisfied with our bargain. Here's the money. And I guess I'll be moving along. I'll see you again in a day or so with the papers.”
“Thank you very much indeed,” said Mrs. Kinsey earnestly. “And I do so hope that you'll do well with it, and that you won't lose anything.”
A chair scraped. Footsteps came from the back passageway, which, as Jimmie Dale crouched lower behind the counter, suddenly grew light. A moment more and Little Sweeney stepped into the shop, making for the front door; behind him followed Mrs. Kinsey, carrying in one hand a lamp, and clutched in the other her ear-trumpet and a hundred-dollar bill.
Jimmie Dale's lips set grimly. Back in the corridor that was now darkened again he thought he saw a shadow move; he distinctly caught the sound of a footstep. The downstairs watcher—and Mrs. Kinsey's hundred-dollar bill! It was quite clear now, the whole mean, sordid, contemptible business. The bait was cunning enough in a low, vicious way; amply cunning enough to succeed with a trusting, simple old woman already on the verge of her dotage. Where Mrs. Kinsey, who distrusted banks, had secreted her savings of years, she would secret a hundred-dollar bill.
Little Sweeney—in lieu, no doubt, of shouting on the street—bowed himself out politely.
“Good-night,” said Mrs. Kinsey. “And thank you again.”
She closed and locked the door, and came back through the shop, passing again into the rear hallway.
As the light receded, Jimmie Dale rose cautiously. Mrs. Kinsey's lamp, as she had passed, disclosed the fact that just beyond the rear door of the shop, the passageway made a jut at right angles. He nodded tersely to himself as he gained this with the trained step, so silent as to be almost uncanny, that had mocked at even the creaky boards of the old Sanctuary, and, in the shadows himself now, he peered along the hallway proper.
Steep, narrow stairs, to the left and a little way down the hall, led to the upper story. Mrs. Kinsey, still carrying her lamp, still clutching at her ear-trumpet and the hundred-dollar bill, was already near the top. The lower portion of the stairs and the hall itself, since her body shaded the lamp, were in almost complete darkness.
And then from somewhere above there came a sharp, whispered interrogation:
“Well?”
From along the lower hall, her figure shrouded in the blackness, a woman's voice answered:
“She's still got it. Watch her.”
Mother Margot! Limpy Mack, then, was the upstairs watcher. There seemed something incongruous in this passage of words between the two, like a stage aside that was not supposed to be heard by the intervening figure of the old woman who was climbing the stairs; but it was not the incongruity in itself, it was the callous brutality, the vulture-like preying upon helpless infirmity, that hardened Jimmie Dale's face now in a sort of merciless intentness.
Mrs. Kinsey's light disappeared around the landing at the head of the stairs, and then, contemptuous of any exaggerated attempt at silence, another footstep sounded on the stair treads. Jimmie Dale could not see, it was pitch black in the lower hall now, but it was not necessary to see the obvious. Mother Margot was following Mrs. Kinsey upstairs.
And now there came the sound as of some one walking about in a room overhead for a moment or so, and then silence.
Jimmie Dale moved toward the stairs, and without a sound began to make his way upward. Halfway up he paused, and stood tight-pressed against the wall. He could just detect a glow of light filtering into the upper hallway, as though the door of a lighted room, almost directly above his head, stood open into the hall. Then a footstep and still another, starting from a position further back along the hall, moved toward the lighted doorway. Came then the sound as of a piece of furniture being moved on squeaky casters; and then a low-breathed, exultant oath in a man's voice, followed by a woman's vicious chuckle. He could almost discern the outlines of two figures there—Mother Margot and Limpy Mack.
“Pipe de lay!” chuckled Mother Margot. “Dere goes Little Sweeney's century buck. Look at her saltin' it!”
“Close your trap!” ordered Limpy Mack sharply. “Maybe she can't hear, but that's no reason for taking a chance of spilling the beans now we know where they are.”
“Aw, forget it! Youse gives me a pain!” retorted Mother Margot acidly, but in a nevertheless more subdued tone. “Youse'd have to write her a letter to tell her youse was makin' a noise before she'd be wise to it, an' mabbe den she wouldn't believe youse!”
“Shut your face!” said Limpy Mack tersely.
The sound of what had seemed to Jimmie Dale like squeaky casters came again, then a footstep traversed the lighted room, a door—obviously one connecting with an adjoining room—opened and closed again,