_ CHAPTER IX. IN THE GARDEN OF TEMPTATION
Their destination, one of the score of tango tea-rooms which had sprung to mushroom popularity within the year, was soon reached. Leaning heavily upon his stick, limping like his aged model, and spluttering impatiently, Shirley was assisted by the uniformed door man into the lobby. Helene followed meekly. Four hat boys from the check-room made the conventional scramble for his greatcoat, hat and stick, nearly upsetting him in their eagerness. Then Shirley led the way into the half light of the tropical, indoor garden, picking a way through the tables to a distant wall seat, embowered with electric grapes and artificial vines.
"Sit down, my darling child," said the pseudo Grimsby, as he dropped into a seat behind the table, which was protected from the lights, and furthest away from any possible visitors. "We are early, avoiding the crush. Soon the crowd will be here. We must have some champagne at once, to assist me in my defensive tactics. You will have to do most of the talking. Remember, we are going to the Winter Garden musical review when we leave here: you may tell this to whom you will."
Helene looked about curiously, as the big tea-room began to fill with its usual late afternoon crowd of patrons,--young, old and indeterminate in age. Women of maturely years, young misses from "finishing" schools, demimondaine, social "bounders" deluded by the glitter of their own jewelry and the thrill of their wasted money that they were climbing into New York society--these and other curious types rubbed elbows in this melting pot of folly. The tinkle of glasses, the increasing buzz of conversation, the empty laughter of too many emptied cocktail glasses mingled with the droning music of an Hawaiian string quartette in the far corner.
Suddenly, with banging tampani and the crash of cymbals, rattle of tambourines and beating of tomtoms, the barbaric Ethiopians of the dancing orchestra began their syncopated outrages against every known law of harmony--swinging weirdly into the bewitching, tickling, tingling rhythm of a maxixe.
"How strange!" murmured Helene, as the waiter brought them some champagne and indigestible pastries--the true ingredients of 'dansant the'.
"Yes, on with the dance-let joy be unrefined! The fall of the Roman Empire was the bounce of a rubber nursery ball, compared with this New York avalanche of luxurious satiation! Now, my child, old Da-da, is going to become too intoxicated to talk three words to any of these gallants and their lassies. Grimsby did not write a monologue for me, so I must pantomime: you will have to carry the speaking part of our playlet. Flatter them--but don't leave my side to dance!"
The first bottle of wine had been carried away by the waiter, (half emptied it is true,) as he filled a second order. Shirley shielded his face beneath a drooping spray of artificial blooms from the top of their wallbower. Several young men were approaching them, and the criminologist noted with relief that they evidenced their afternoon libations even so early. Eyes dulled with over-stimulus were the less analytical. Chance was favoring him. The newcomers were garbed in that debonair and "cultured" modishness so dear to the hearts of magazine illustrators. Faces, weak with sunken cheek lines, strong in creases of selfishness, darkened by the brush strokes of nocturnal excesses and seared, all of them with the brand mark of inbred rascality, identified them to Shirley as members of that shrewd class of sycophants who feast on the follies of the more amateurish moths of the Broadway Candles.
"Hello, old pop Grimsby!"
"You're in the dark of the moon, Grimmie! I couldn't make you out but for those horn rimmed head lights."
"Welcome to the joy-parlor, old scout."
The greetings of the juvenile buzzards varied only in phraseology: their portent was identical: "Open wine."
"Poor Mr Grimsby is so ill this afternoon, but sit down and have something with us," volunteered Helene tremulously.
The bees gathered about the table to feast on the vinous honey, while Shirley, mumbling a few words, maintained his partial obscurity, with one hand to his forehead.
"Fine boysh, m'deah. Boysh, meet little Bonbon--my protashsh!"
Little Bonbon was a pronounced attraction. Her vivacious charm drew the eyes away from Shirley, who studied the expressions of the weasel faces about him. The girl's heart sickened under the brutal frankness of a dozen calculating eyes, yet she valiantly maintained her part, while Shirley marveled at her clever simulation of silly, giggly, semi-intoxication. One youth deserted them to disappear through the distant dining room entrance. The comments about the table were interesting to the keen-eared masquerader.
"Old Grimsby's picked a live one, this time!"--"What show is she with?"--"Won't Pinkie be sore?" The criminologist was not left to wonder as to the identity of "Pinkie," for an older man, walking behind a red-headed girl in a luridly modern gown, approached the table with the absent guest. The men were talking earnestly, the girl staring angrily at Shirley's, beautiful companion.
"Hey, here come's Reggie! Sit down, Reg. Pop has passed away, but his credit is still strong."
"There's Pinkie--come, my dear, and join the Ladies' Aid Society and have a lemonade," jested another youth, making a place for the girl in the aisle.
Pinkie's dark-haired companion sank somewhat unsteadily into a chair next the girl. He frowned and rubbed his forehead, as though to clear his mind for needed concentration. He shook Shirley's arm, and spoke sharply.
"Look up; Grimmie. I never saw you feel your wine so early in the afternoon. It was a lucky day for me on Wall Street, so I celebrated myself. You are here earlier than usual. Everybody have some champagne with me."
As he beckoned to the waiter, the red-haired girl bestowed a murderous look upon Helene, who was sniffing some flowers which she had drawn from the vase on the table.
"Who's that Jane?" she demanded, her voice-shaking with jealousy. "Grimmie, you act as if you were doped. Introduce us to your swell friend. Wake him, Reg Warren."
Helene's jeweled white hand protected the safety-first dozing of her companion, as, through the interstices of his fingers, he studied the inscrutable difference between the face of Warren and the other youths about them.
"Let Pop dream of a new way to make a million!" laughed one young man. "His money grows while he sleeps."
"Yes, let him dream on," laughed Helene, with a shrill giggle. "When he makes that extra million he can star me on Broadway, in my own show. He, he!"
"You'll have to spend half of it at John the Barber's getting your voice marceled and your face manicured," snarled Pinkie. "Come, Reg, and dance with me: these bounders bore me."
"Run along, Pinkie, and fox-trot your grouch away with Shine Taylor. Here comes the wine I ordered--What's your name, girlie? Where did you meet Grimsby?"
"Oh, we're old friends," and Helene maliciously spilled a bottle over the interrogator's waistcoat, as she reached forward to shake his hand. "My name's Bonbon, you wouldn't believe me if I told you my real name, anyway. Who are you?"
"I'm not Neptune," he retorted, as he mopped the bubbles with a napkin. "You've started in badly." Shirley mentally disagreed. His stupor still obsessed him, but he noted with interest that Warren paid the check for his bottle with a new one-hundred dollar bill. Warren could elicit nothing from Helene but silly laughter, and so he arose impatiently, as Shine Taylor returned to whisper something in his ear. "I must be getting back to my apartment. Bring Grimsby up to it to-night: a little bromo will bring him back to the land of the living. I'll have a jolly crowd there--top floor of the Somerset, on Fifty-sixth Street, you know, near Sixth Avenue. Come up after the show."
"We're going to the Winter Garden," suggested Helene, at a nudge from Shirley, and Warren nodded.
"I'll try to see you later, anyway. Goodbye!"
Losing interest in the proceedings, as the time for reckoning the bill approached, the other gallants followed these two. Alone, again, Shirley ordered some black coffee, and smiled at his assistant.
"He told the truth for once."
"What do you mean?"
"He will try to see us later. That man is a member of the murderous clan whom we seek. 'To-night is the night' for the exit of William Grimsby--but, perhaps we may have a stage wait which will surprise them."
Gradually the guests thinned out in the tea-room, but Shirley cautiously waited until the last.
"Do you believe these young men are all members of the gang?" asked the girl. "Why do you suppose these men are all criminals? They surely look a bad lot."
"There are two general reasons why men go wrong. One is hard luck, aided by tempting opportunity--they hope to make a success out of failure, and then keep on the straight path for the rest of their lives. Such men are the absconders, the forgers, the bank-wreckers, and even the petty thieves. But once branded with the prison bars and stripes, they seldom find it possible to turn against the tide in which they find themselves: so they become habitual offenders. They are the easiest criminals to detect. The second class are the born crooks, who are lazy, sharp-witted and without enough will-power to battle against the problems of honesty in work. It is easy enough to succeed if a man is clever and unscrupulous without a shred of generosity. The hard problem is to be affectionate, human, and conquer every-day battles by remaining actively honest, when your rivals are not straight. The born crook is safer from prison than the weakling of the first class." He looked down at the coffee, and then continued.
"I do not believe all these young men are in this curious plot. They are merely the small fry of the fishing banks: they are petty rascals, with occasional big game. But somewhere, behind this sinister machine, is a guiding hand on the throttle, a brain which is profound, an eye which is all-seeing and a heart as cold as an Antartic mountain. There is the exceptional type of criminal who is greedy--for money and its luxurious possibilities; selfish--with regard for no other heart in the world; crafty--with the cunning of an Apache, enjoying the thrill of crime and cruelty; refined and vainglorious--with pride in his skill to thwart justice and confidence in his ability to continually broaden the scope of his work. Crime is the ruling passion of this unknown man. And the way to catch him is by using that passion as a bait upon the hook. I am the wriggling little angle worm who will dangle before his eyes to-night. But I do not expect to land him--I merely purpose to learn his identity, to draw the net of the law about him, in such a way as to keep the Grimsby and Van Cleft names from the case."
"And how can that be done?"
"That, young lady, is my 'fatal secret.' The subplot developing within my mind is still nebulous with me,--you would lose all interest, as would I, if you knew what was going to happen. But the time has passed, and now we can go to the theatre. I bought the tickets by messenger this afternoon. I will let you do the talking to the chauffeur and the usher."
They left the tea-room, the last guests out.
It was a touching sight to see the elderly gentleman supported on one side by a fat French waiter, and on the opposite, by the solicitous girl. The old Civil War wound was unusually troublesome. _