The Under Dogs

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER III MME. STOREYI would like to draw a complete, full-length portrait of my mistress, Mme. Storey, but it is beyond my powers. The best I can do is to portray her in action, and leave it to my readers to form their own conclusions. At this time I had been with her as her secretary for over two years; and it was true, as she said, that there were few people who knew her as well as I did. But that is not to say that I knew her completely; there was a high quality in her nature that escaped my comprehension. She was the only disinterested woman I ever knew. Imagine a woman whose judgment was never swayed by her feelings! In this respect I am no more than an average woman myself, consequently the manifestation of her disinterestedness always astonished me.

Like other great-souled people, she found but few souls to commune with on this dusty sphere. On the other hand, living in the full glare of publicity, she was much at the mercy of fools. In order to protect herself, she had gradually built up the Mme. Storey of the popular imagination; the tall, exotic, unmoved beauty, to whom, without any necessity of exerting herself, everything was revealed. She seemed to exist in an atmosphere miles above that of ordinary people. Mme. Storey was she who could not be deceived. A thousand stories were told of her extraordinary insight as well as her personal foibles; her amazing clothes; her cigarettes; the objects of art with which she surrounded herself; her array of rare perfumes; the fantastically dressed black ape who sat upon her arm. She had become almost a legendary figure.

She had deliberately cultivated this faculty of inspiring people with awe of her. It was good for business, and it kept fools at arm's length. Well do I remember how terrified I was when she first swam into my ken. But it was not the real Mme. Storey. From very old people, or from children, or from any soul in trouble, she made no pretence of hiding her kind heart. After two years daily association I knew her better than anybody. When we were alone together, she threw off her public manner with relief; and emerged keen, human, lovable and full of laughter. But there was always a suggestion of that awe-inspiring quality behind; something about her one could not quite reach.

She was one of the most beautiful women in New York, but the fame of her beauty was far overshadowed by that of her mind. Men marvelled at the sang-froid with which she pointed to the solution of the most baffling problems. At a single phrase of Mme. Storey's, whole vast structures of evasions and circumlocutions and false reasoning would collapse like a house of cards, revealing the simple truth. Somebody said, after the famous smoke-bandit case: "The cleverest man in town is a woman;" but that conveys a false idea. Mme. Storey's wonderful mind was wholly feminine; her success was due to the fact that she refused to force it into masculine channels of thought. She worked by intuition, that swifter and surer process of reasoning. Unfortunately, in a man-ruled world, intuition is at a discount, and Mme. Storey was obliged to spend a good three-fourths of her time proving to judges, juries, and other men, that her unerring intuitions were true according to their cumbrous rules of logic and reason.

Our offices are on the parlour floor of a splendid old dwelling on Gramercy Park, which has been sub-divided. We do not hang out a shingle, for the whole town knows its way there. Mme. Storey describes herself as a "practical psychologist," to which she sometimes adds, with a twinkle in her eye, "specialising in the feminine." The style and the location of the rooms makes them equally well adapted for either business or social activities. Sometimes Mme. Storey gives parties in the beautiful long room, where the famous treasures of the Italian renaissance are displayed. Only her ultimate friends know the inside of the delightful little house on East Sixty-third street, that she shares with Mrs. Lysaght. Those rooms are decorated in a very different style; less glorious, but more inviting.

On the day that I spent in attendance at the Soupert trial, we left a boy in charge of the office, and Mme. Storey remained working at home. She was busy with the well-remembered case of Admiral Van der Venter, who was subject to such curious lapses of personality. I went to her there, and was shown into that enchanting living-room, so quaintly furnished in the style of 1850. The windows faced south, and overlooked a tiny formal garden in the rear of the house. The invaluable Grace served us tea and little chocolate cakes, and any one who had seen my mistress en négligée, munching chocolate cakes, could not have thought her otherwise than purely feminine.

She listened with close attention to my account of the trial.

"What do you make of it?" she asked, when I had done.

"I was sorry for the girl," I said. "But I think we ought to keep in mind the possibility that there may be nothing in it, beyond what appears on the surface. She's a thorough egoist, and it may be she thinks there is something deep, dark, and mysterious about her case, just because it is her case. When she lost control of herself, and became hysterical, surely if there was anything behind it all, it must have come out then."

Mme. Storey shook her head. "Not badly argued," she said, "but I feel you are wrong. There is one false assumption in your reasoning. I have not found that women tell the truth in their hysterical outbursts, or that they give away anything they don't want to have known. Hysteria is largely a self-induced state, and a woman who can bring it on can make it work for her."

"But if she wanted help...?"

Mme. Storey lit a cigarette, and thoughtfully puffed at it. "Bella," she said, "most of us only face the truth about our situation once or twice in a lifetime—some of us never. Suppose it came to this poor girl in the night, lying sleepless on the hard bunk of her cell, and she got up and wrote that letter to me on the spur of the moment. As soon as she sent it out, she would regret it. She'd rather die now than confess she was the girl who had written it."

"But how can we do anything for her without her co-operation?"

"I admit it will be difficult. But, perhaps, we can bring her back to a more amenable frame of mind.... The case interests me. It smells of mystery. The inwardness of it was not revealed at the trial. The suggestion that she committed all these thefts single-handed will not hold water. Of course she did the actual lifting of the jewels, but she could not dispose of them without assistance. That business is too highly organised.

"Then there is this young man she was married to, who shook her so precipitately. That is unusual. Young people generally cleave to each other at such a time. An accusation of theft is nothing to a lover. It seems incredible that the young man should not even feel concern enough to attend her trial.... We will have this George Mullen looked for.

"Finally, there is Shryock's extraordinary attitude," Mme. Storey went on, more like one thinking aloud. "There's a subtle, astute scoundrel! His connection with the case interests me more than anything else. He was the real prosecutor of the girl. He turned his thumbs down, and she was railroaded.... I've long had my eye on Shryock. I consider him the most sinister and hateful figure on the local scene. I have longed to be able to open up the underground ramifications of his power. It would be odd, wouldn't it, if I was able to get him at last, through the means of an anonymous letter from one of his humblest victims? ... We've made a good bit of money the last year or two, Bella. We can afford to do a piece of work gratis for the good of the community. Oh, decidedly, as long as Shryock is mixed up in this case, I shall not drop it."

"What is the next move?" I asked.

"Katherine Couteau Cloke, the well-known prison reformer, is a friend of mine," said Mme. Storey. "She's a sort of unofficial inspector of all the prisons, and makes frequent trips to Woburn. I'll get her to arrange an interview for me with the girl."

"But if you visited Woburn Prison it would immediately become known," I said. "Even if you went in disguise. Those places are full of spies, Shryock would certainly be informed of your interest in the girl."

"Oh, Bella, you're so confoundedly prudent!" said Mme. Storey, with pretended impatience. "However, I suppose you're right. You'll have to see the girl, then, and persuade her that we are her friends." She reached for the telephone. "Let us see if we can get hold of Miss Cloke now."

By great good fortune we caught that busy woman at a loose end, and a few minutes later she was seated beside us in the mellow, inviting living-room; a middle-aged woman, with a plain, strong, good, harassed face. Grace brought her fresh tea, but she refused the chocolate cakes.

"Ah, what a haven of rest!" she murmured, glancing around the room, and visibly relaxing.

"You should not wait until you are sent for," said Mme. Storey, smiling.

Evidently they were tried friends; they looked at each other with eyes of affection. No two women could have been more dissimilar. Miss Cloke was one of the dowdy, plain-spoken sort, that men affect to sneer at, but who accomplish a deal of good in the world. Certainly the prisoners of this state have a lot to thank her for.

"Did you ever hear of a jewel thief called Melanie Soupert?" asked Mme. Storey. "An old offender."

"Why, yes," said Miss Cloke at once. "One would not forget that name. Let me see ... she escaped from Woburn Prison two years ago, and was never apprehended. She had influential friends, one supposes."

"Indeed!" said Mme. Storey; "that's interesting."

"They can generally catch an escaped prisoner if they really wish to," said Miss Cloke, with the shrug of one who was disillusioned without being embittered.

"Her influential friends must have abandoned her," said I. "She's been sent up again, on another charge."

"Oh, I don't know," drawled Mme. Storey; "she may escape again."

I glanced at my mistress, wondering what theory she was evolving. Her face gave away nothing.

"Do you remember the circumstances of her escape?" she asked Miss Cloke.

That lady shook her head. "There is seldom anything spectacular in the cases where there is collusion. A prisoner turns up missing, and it's often hard to establish just how she did get away. Say a party of prisoners is taken for some special purpose to the outer yard of the prison; an entertainment, or welfare work of some sort. A complaisant keeper turns his back, and a prisoner strolls away, presently to be picked up by a waiting car—sometimes in the outer yard of the prison itself. Under modern, humane methods, escapes are more numerous than they used to be; but we contend that the loss is far outbalanced by the gain in other ways."

"Can you remember the girl herself?" asked Mme. Storey.

"Yes," said Miss Cloke slowly, "a handsome, dark girl, with a bold glance.... An incorrigible!" she went on with a sigh. "One of the sort who sets all my work at naught. It's hard to be patient with such a one."

"Just how do you mean, incorrigible?"

"You cannot reach her better feelings. With such a prisoner any softening of the iron hand will immediately be taken advantage of; any trust you put in her will be betrayed. Such a one, vain, wilful, and defiant, always becomes a rallying-point for all the rebels in the prison; they make a hero of her."

"But the better feelings may be there," said Mme. Storey.

"Oh, certainly! That's what makes it so discouraging. Melanie Soupert is the sort of prisoner that my adversaries throw in my face as proof that my methods are not only mistaken, but positively harmful."

Mme. Storey told Miss Cloke the circumstances of the trial that day. In conclusion she said: "I suspect that this girl is a cog in some great evil machine. What you say about her having powerful friends confirms it. If I can catch her at the right moment, I hope to be able to save her from the machine, of which she is a victim as well as a part; and through her, to destroy the whole foul business."

"What is the nature of this machine?" asked Miss Cloke.

"I don't know," said Mme. Storey frankly. "All I can say so far is that Jim Shryock is in it."

"Shryock!" cried Miss Cloke with an indignant flash of her honest eyes. "If you could destroy him, you would be conferring a boon on us all! It is Shryock and all he stands for that I am fighting night and day, blindfolded! They strike me in the back! ... I wish you luck with the girl," she went on with a rueful smile, "but...!" She ended with a shake of the head.

"I'd like Bella to talk to her," said Mme Storey. "How can it be managed?"

"I go to Woburn next week on my regular visit," said Miss Cloke. "I am often accompanied by students, investigators and what not. Miss Brickley could make one of my party without exciting any remark. We could interview the girl, and I could leave Miss Brickley with her."

Mme. Storey shook her head. "Too obvious," she said. "If you sought the girl out like that it would excite remark. Woburn is full of spies, I suppose."

"Oh, my dear, yes!" said Miss Cloke, with her air of philosophic disillusionment.

"Besides," said Mme. Storey, "if you will forgive me for saying so, I suspect that you, that anything associated with the name of reformer, is like a red rag to this girl."

"That's true," said Miss Cloke, smiling.

"Then it would be better not to have Bella introduced to her under your auspices.... Tell me, just what do you do on your visits to Woburn?"

"I have an assistant there in charge of welfare work. She makes her reports to me, and together we lay out the work for the subsequent month. She recommends individual cases to my attention—generally the incorrigibles; and, as far as time permits, I talk to these prisoners. I also have to consult with the Warden, and make my recommendations to him, which he takes under advisement."

"Well, let us not be in too great haste to act," said Mme. Storey. "Make your visit to Woburn next week without Bella. Find out exactly what is Melanle's situation in the prison, and on the basis of that we will make a plan for bringing Bella and her together naturally."

"Very well," said Miss Cloke; "and shall I drop a hint to the Warden that another rescue of the girl is possible?"

"Oh, no! no!" said Mme. Storey quickly. "As an escaped prisoner they will already be watching her closely enough. For goodness' sake let her friends get her out, if they are able!"

Miss Cloke stared at my mistress rather scandalised.

"You think I am very immoral," said Mme. Storey, laughing. "And so I am. But through this girl I could much better reach her masters, couldn't I, if she were free, and in close touch with her? What you ought to do is to drop a hint to the Warden that in this case the ends of justice would best be served by letting the girl escape. But that would be too unmoral, wouldn't it? So we'll just let matters take their course."