Her Forbidden Knight (22 page)

The faces of the Erring Knights were alight with joy. They had not expected anything like this. With vociferous applause they proclaimed the greatness of Dougherty, while that gentleman divided the two hundred and fifty among them evenly and gave them sundry advice.

Driscoll and Jennings protested that they had not an even chance with the others, since they had to work from eight till eleven in the evening, whereupon Booth remarked that it was only four o’clock, and that you could lose fifty dollars in fifty seconds if you only went about it right.

They were all optimistic. Dougherty’s scheme was an excellent one, they declared—perfect, certain to win. Knowlton was as good as free. Three thousand? It would be nearer ten.

“Wait,” said the ex-prizefighter as they left the lobby together, “wait till tonight. It’ll be time enough to crow then. I never yet saw a referee count a guy out when he was still on his feet. Remember, midnight, at Dumain’s rooms.”

They parted on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, each going his own way and sending back a “Good luck!” over his shoulder to the others.

It would have appeared to the casual observer that Knowlton’s chance for freedom, if it depended on the success of this hare-brained, desperate scheme of Dougherty’s, was a slim one. But yet it was a chance.

There were five of them—they were anything but inexperienced—and they were at concert pitch. True knighthood finds its brightest glory when pitted against seemingly overwhelming odds; and though the ribbon of their lady fluttered not from their buttonholes, yet did they fight valiantly for her.

The hour of midnight found them—all five—reassembled at Dumain’s apartments on Twenty-first Street, in the room which, some two months previous, had seen the triumph of Knowlton and the treacherous blow of Sherman.

The room was not bare, as it had been then. In the center stood a table littered with books and magazines, above which a massive reading globe cast its circle of light downward, leaving the upper half of the room in darkness.

A piano stood in one corner; by the mantel a chess table with the pieces arranged, apparently, at the crisis of an unfinished game; and there were half a dozen easy chairs, of various shapes and sizes. Altogether, a very pleasant spot—Booth declared he was about persuaded to become a palmist himself.

Driscoll, who arrived last, entered on the stroke of twelve. He found the others waiting impatiently—for Dougherty had insisted that each man should keep the story of his success or failure to himself until all were present. Judging from the expression on their faces, there was little to tell.

The little Frenchman waved Driscoll to a chair on the other side of the table and seated himself on the piano stool. Booth threw down a book he had been pretending to read, and Jennings yawned ostentatiously. All looked expectantly at Dougherty as he pounded on the arm of his chair for attention.

“I guess it’s time to kill the cat,” said the ex-prizefighter gloomily. “For your benefit,” he turned to Driscoll, “we’ve held off on the dope. I will now tell the sad story of my life. Heaven knows I wish it was different. Maybe I was wrong, but we’ve only lost two hundred—”

“Come on, cut your mutton,” Driscoll interrupted.

Dougherty glared at him, sighed, and began:

“I hate to tell it. There’s not much to tell. At exactly four-fifteen this afternoon I took a seat at a table of five at Webster’s on Thirty-sixth Street and bought a stack of blues. For an hour I fed the kitty, then it began to come.

“I helped every pair I drew to. I couldn’t lose. At about seven o’clock I’d cashed in four hundred and had a stack about the size of the Flatiron Building in front of me.

“If I’ve ever played poker I played it then. But it began to turn. They wouldn’t come. I couldn’t get better than a pair, and they were never good enough. I boosted twice on a one-card draw to four pink ones, but couldn’t get the filler.

“I prayed for ’em and tore ’em up and tried to run away with one or two, but they called me. And then—I had four ladies topped by a little guy on his first pot!”

A universal groan came from the audience.

“That finished me. I fought back as hard as I could, but they rushed me off my feet. At a quarter past eleven I cashed in exactly fifty dollars. Here it is.”

There was complete silence as Dougherty held up five ten-dollar bills and sorrowfully returned them to his pocket. Then everybody began talking at once.

“Anyway, you kept your fifty.”

“It could have been worse.”

“Zat pokaire is zee devil of a game.”

“Come on—who’s next? Go on with the story!”

This last from Driscoll.

Dougherty motioned to the little Frenchman.

“Me?” said Dumain. “I am worse yet than Dougherty. I got nozzing. I lost zee fifty.”

“But how?”

“Zee race ponies,” answered Dumain, with a fling at the jargon. “I play nozzing but
écarté,
and there is not zat here. I had a good what you call eet teep for Peemlico. Zee fourth race—zee name of zee horse was Parcel-Post.”

“How did you play him?”

“Straight. To win. A friend of mine got a telegram from zee owner. It was certain he should win.”

“And I suppose he got the place?” asked Booth.

“What does zat mean?”

“It means he came in second.”

The little Frenchman shook his head sorrowfully.

“Oh, no. He came een last.”

There was a shout of laughter from the others, but it was soon stopped by Dougherty, who turned to Jennings with a gesture. He wanted to get the thing finished.

“I’m in the same class with Dumain,” said Jennings. “I tried your game, Dougherty, and I thought I was some poker player—but good night! They took my fifty so quick I didn’t have time to tell it good-by.”

“Where’d you go?”

“Pearly’s, on Sixth Avenue. I’ve sat in there once or twice before, and about six months ago I made a clean-up. But tonight—don’t make me talk about it.”

“We’re a bunch of boobs,” Dougherty groaned. “We’d better all go out in the morning and sell lead pencils. Your turn, Driscoll.”

But Driscoll said that he would prefer to follow Booth, and since Dougherty was not inclined to argue the matter, he turned to the typewriter salesman instead.

“I’m willing,” said that gentleman, “though my tale contains but little joy. Still, I guess we’re about even.

“It doesn’t matter exactly where I went. It’s downtown, and it’s in the rear of a two-by-four billiard hall. At any hour of any afternoon you may find there a number of gentlemen engaged in the ancient and honorable game of craps.

“I’ll spare you the details—at least, most of ’em. The game is a big one: there’s lots of real money there for the man that knows how to get it, and I figured it out that I was just about the man.

“I rolled the bones till my fingers ached and my knees were stiff, and my voice sounded like a Staten Island ferryboat in a fog—I have a little habit of talking to the ivories.

“Well, to cut it short, I played in all directions. At one time I had six hundred dollars. At another time I had fifteen dollars. At half past eleven tonight I had an even hundred, and it was time to go.

“I had the dice, and I decided on one more throw. My hundred—I played it all—was faded before I put it down, and I threw a natural—a seven. I stuck the two hundred in my pocket and said good night.”

“Well, we’ve got our two hundred and fifty back, anyway,” observed Jennings.

“And what good will that do?” growled Dougherty.

“You never can tell. Tomorrow’s another day.”

“It seems to me,” put in Driscoll, “that I remain to be heard from.”

“Shoot your head off,” said the ex-prizefighter, “and hurry up about it. This is awful!”

Driscoll blew his nose with care and deliberation, cleared his throat three times, and arose to his feet. There was something in his manner that caused the others to sit up straighter in their chairs with an air of expectancy. Noticing this flattering increase of attention, he smiled grandly and surveyed them with a leisurely eye.

“In the first place, gentlemen,” he began, “I wish to say that I do not regard myself as a genius, in any sense of the word. At poker I am worse than helpless. The race ponies, as Dumain calls them, are a mystery to me. Nor have I that deft and subtle touch required to roll dice successfully.”

There came a chorus of cries:

“Cut it!”

“Cheese the guff!”

“Talk sense!”

“Go on with the story!”

Driscoll waited for them to finish, then resumed calmly:

“Do not be impatient, gentlemen. As I say, I am well aware of the fact that I am no genius. Therefore, I realized that if my fifty dollars grew to the desired proportions it would be only by the aid of miraculous chance. I made my plans accordingly.

“When I left you in front of the Lamartine at four o’clock I went straight to my own room. There I procured a piece of paper, and marked on it with a pen the figures from one to thirty-five, about an inch apart.

“I then tore the paper into thirty-five pieces, so that I had each figure on a piece by itself. I placed these in my hat, mixed them around, and drew one forth. It was the figure thirty-two.”

Again there came cries of impatience from the audience, who began to perceive that this lengthy preamble meant an interesting conclusion, and again the speaker ignored them and continued:

“That operation completed, I threw myself on my bed for a nap. At six o’clock I rose, went to a restaurant for dinner, and from there to my work at the theater. My first action there was to borrow fifty dollars, thereby doubling my capital.

“At the end of the play I dressed as hurriedly as possible, leaving the theater at exactly a quarter past eleven, and made my way to a certain establishment on Fiftieth Street, conducted by a Mr. Merrifield.

“It is, I believe, the largest and finest of its kind in New York. They have there a contrivance commonly known as a roulette wheel, which has numbers and colors arranged on it in an unique fashion. I stood before it and placed my hundred dollars on the number thirty-two.”

The speaker paused, turned, and took his overcoat from the back of the chair on which he had been sitting, while his audience looked on in breathless silence.

Then he finished:

“The result, gentlemen, can be easier shown than told. Here it is.”

He drew forth from a pocket of the overcoat a stack of bills and tossed them on the table, crying:

“There she is, boys! Thirty-five nice, crisp hundreds on one spin of the wheel!”

Then and there was pandemonium. They shouted and danced about, and clapped Driscoll on the back till he sought a corner for refuge, and spread the bills over the table to gloat over, and generally raised the devil. Dumain was sitting down at the piano to play a triumphal march when Dougherty suddenly rushed over to him and clasped his shoulder.

“Did you notice that number?” he asked excitedly.

The little Frenchman looked up at Dougherty.

“What number?”

“The one that Driscoll played on the wheel.”

“Yes—thirty-two. Why?”

“Sure,” said Dougherty. “Number thirty-two. Don’t you remember?—you was down there this afternoon. That’s the number of Knowlton’s cell in the Tombs!”

W
HEN
L
ILA REACHED THE LOBBY OF THE
L
AMARTINE
at nine o’clock on the following morning she found the Erring Knights already assembled in their corner.

For a moment she forgot everything else in her surprise; she had thought that nothing less than the end of the world could possibly have roused these gentlemen of leisure from their beds at so early an hour.

Dougherty hastened over to her desk and demanded to know why she had left her room.

“Why not?” Lila smiled. “I feel all right, really. And, anyway, I had rather be down here than up there alone. Did you see him?”

The ex-prizefighter grunted an affirmative and proceeded to give her a detailed account of his conversation with Knowlton on the previous morning. He ended by saying that they had engaged a lawyer, and that the sinews of war in the sum of three thousand dollars had been entrusted to Dumain as treasurer.

“But Mr. Dougherty,” Lila exclaimed, “we can’t possibly use that! I thought—you see, I have saved a little—”

Dougherty interrupted her:

“Now see here. We’re doing this, and you’ve got to let us alone. Anyway, it’s not really costing us a cent. I won’t explain how, but you can take my word for it.

“Everything’s all right, and you don’t need to worry, and for Heaven’s sake don’t begin any of that stuff about you won’t take this and you won’t take that. If we’re going to help you we’ve got to help you. What did you think I meant yesterday morning—that I was going to carry a note to Knowlton and then go home and sit down with my fingers crossed?”

Whereupon, giving her no time to answer, Dougherty turned and rejoined the others across the lobby.

This was the beginning of a campaign which lasted a little over a month.

The duties of the Erring Knights were varied and arduous. Each morning one of them conducted Lila to the hotel, and took her home each evening, this escort being necessitated by the fact that Sherman had twice accosted her on the street. He had also called at her home, but there was no necessity for a male guardian there. Mrs. Amanda Berry was a legion in herself.

Dougherty was the official messenger between the Lamartine and the Tombs. At first Lila had insisted on going to see Knowlton herself, but he had begged her to spare him this final humiliation.

The prisoner wrote:

I long to see you; you know it; but it is enough to have the picture of this place imprinted on my own memory—I can’t bear that you should see me here.

Whatever your imagination shows you it cannot be as dreadful as the reality. If I obtain my freedom I shall not feel that I have cheated justice. Heaven knows I could not pay more dearly for my crime than I have already paid.

Knowlton stubbornly refused to allow his lawyer to procure his release on bail. The lawyer said he was quixotic; Dougherty used a stronger and commoner term, but they could not change his decision. He gave no reasons, but they understood; and the lawyer, who was at least as scrupulous as the average of his profession, declared to Dumain that for the first time in ten years’ practise he was defending a guilty man with a clear conscience.