The Chinese Jewel

Front matter

The Chinese Jewel

By Jackson Gregory Author of “A Forced Acceptance,” etc.

I. when evidence looks black

CHAPTER I. WHEN EVIDENCE LOOKS BLACK.

BACK in New York had come Billy Steele with one grim purpose steadfastly and stubbornly held. Day after day, night after night, stern and alert and unflagging, he strove to get the goods on the man whom, in his heart, he held to be the very king: of crooks. The star man of Ferguson's detective agency had but the one determination; the time had come when some man must bring “King” Tom Reagan to book, and that man must be Billy Steele. He was like the ancient Roman senator with the hatred of Carthage: an must be destroyed.”

Returning from San Francisco, Steele had brought back with him a bitter sense of having been worsted by Tom Reagan, the burning knowledge that he had failed dismally in his real work, the clearness of vision to see that Reagan had used him as his most convenient tool. For a man of Steele's vocation to digest such an experience was to have in his mouth the taste of wormwood. No longer was it an impersonal duello between a bold lawbreaker and a representative of justice; the affair had become a man-to-man one as well.

True, Steele had recovered for the San Francisco bank the bulk of its stolen money. But he had brought no man to the dock for the double crime; he had seen the murderer of the night watchman go on his way unmolested. And, moreover, he had seen again the light of triumph in Reagan's eyes. The entire story he had told to two men in the California city, setting forth the parts played by Reagan himself, as well as by Tony Waldron, “Gaudy” Kelley Jimmie the Crook, and the rest of them. He had recounted everything to the Western police chief; the officer had stared at him curiously a moment when he had finished, and then, with the hint of a sneer in his voice, had said briefly: “I see.” From him Steele had gone to President Merivale, of the Merchants' National, and eventually Merivale had bestowed upon him a narrow-eyed look of suspicion and had even, dryly and laconically, spoken in the police chief's own words: “I see.” Steele's blood was still hot with anger when he boarded the Overland Limited at the Oakland pier; by the time he had arrived in New York again that anger had hardened and solidified into a purpose of adamant.

It was an ugly knowledge that those men had chosen the obvious and false explanation and had felt assured that he had taken bribe money from Reagan. The situation galled. Steele, used to the vicissitudes of his walk in life, bore it all, contenting himself by saying that men who knew him would know better than Merivale and the Western chief of police.

Then he told the already twice-told tale to his chief, Ferguson, in the latter's offices on Broadway. For a long time Ferguson said nothing, just sitting behind his square desk staring at his star man, his brows bunched up, his square fingers tapping noiselessly. After that long silence, which at first Steele did not understand, he said bluntly:

“I hope to Heaven, Billy Steele, that when King Reagan goes up the river you'll be the man to get the goods on him.”

Not the words so much as the tone made Steele bend forward and demand:

“Just what's back of that remark, chief? Let's have it!”

But Ferguson looked uncertain, even troubled. He shook his head, got a cigar from a drawer of his desk, and at last blurted out:

“You're no fool, Steele. Just keep your eyes open.”

And Steele, being no fool, kept eyes, ears, and mind open. Going from the office to his own rooms, he did a great deal of thinking. He reviewed the occurrences of the last few days, seeking to see each separate happening as other men would have seen them. He had gone West on a case of bank robbery and murder which the police of two cities suspected Tom Reagan of engineering. All the way across the continent, without Steele's knowledge, that same Tom Reagan had been his fellow passenger from the Grand Central Station to the Sixteenth Street mole. Reagan had sat tight in his drawing-room; had had his meals served him there; had amused himself with his papers, his cigars, and his schemes. How was the police world to know that the detective had no knowledge of the criminal's nearness during those four days? It was known, because Steele himself had thrice told it, that a letter intrusted to him by Reagan had vitally aided in running to earth Tony Waldron; it was known that Reagan had driven with him to President Merivale's home that night Steele returned the bank's money. And in the end, simply telling a true and unbelievable tale, Steele had sworn that Reagan himself was in this case guiltless.

Clearly enough now Steele saw that in all of this there was ample cause for suspicion in the minds of strangers. Reagan's powerful influence had long ago been felt; before now other men had Been bought and silenced by the very interest they had begun by opposing. A new anger kindled in Steele's heart; he saw that already Reagan had gone a long way toward discrediting him. Reagan had realized he could not bribe him, and had chosen the other means of drawing an enemy's claws. Steele, all along, had been looking keenly, single-mindedly for one thing—the evidence to convict Reagan on any of a number of counts. Given time, the man making so stubborn a search is apt to find what he seeks. But meanwhile he is in very grave danger of being blinded to other things if his searching is too eagerly intent. Look for a pin upon the floor and you fail to note the pattern of the carpet, though there be great red roses.

All this Steele began to understand. But one further incident was required and forthcoming before he realized how bent on this phase of his scheming Reagan was and to what lengths he would proceed in his thoroughgoing fashion.

In his room, after his talk with Ferguson, Steele sat long, hunched over a pipe, his eyes frowning at the floor and seeing Only Reagan smiling at him in a sort of sneering triumph. Yes, it was a man-to-man fight now, and Reagan's power was enormous. The man was rich even in New York; he had brains, ambitions, and was unscrupulous. He played always for big stakes, and, though he defied the law and jeered at its agents, he always won. Other lawbreakers who knew the man's strength gave him a wide berth. Petty thieves came to him for aid and it was given; if a few bolder spirits dared to cross the trail of his plans with their own, he ruined them and they died at the hands of a thug or fell into the iron grip of the courts. In either case Reagan went on his path, and each passing year found him more powerful, more wealthy, seemingly more secure in a position which from its very nature should have been eminently precarious.

Such was the man against whom Steele pitted himself. He had the satisfaction of knowing that with Reagan's enmity he had the man's respect. For Reagan, so stilled in measuring men, knew that Steele was head and shoulders above any of those numerous sleuthhounds of the law who bayed over his tracks; he knew Steele for a man of culture and natural keenness whetted by a university education and a great deal of deep study of criminals and criminology; he knew him for a young lawyer who had discovered that his interest was in criminals rather than in crime in the abstract. In fact, Reagan's full realization of just these matters had shown itself in his attempts to get Steele out of the running.

“He wants me off his trail the worst way,” pondered Steele over his pipe, gone cold. “Why should he be so set on it—unless he's getting ready for something new right now?”

He had not seen Reagan since the two had parted in San Francisco; he did not even know if Reagan were again in New York. It struck him that there was a very simple way of knowing. He caught up his telephone from the table at his elbow and called Reagan's home number. It was Havens, Reagan's secretary, who answered.

“It's Steele, Havens,” he said crisply. “May I have a word with Mr. Reagan?”

“He's gone out, Mr. Steele,” came Havens' suave voice. “Any message?”

“No. I just wanted a word with him. Don't know when he will be in, do you?”

Havens laughed.

“You know Mr. Reagan,” was all he said.

Steele put the telephone down. Well, Reagan had returned. No doubt by now he was busied again with whatever he had briefly laid aside for the trip to San Francisco or with whatever had arisen recently. Steele looked at his watch; only six-forty-five. He caught up his hat and stick, suddenly determined to have a look at King Tom Reagan before he went to sleep that night. There was the chance of finding him dining at the Newton.

At the Newton, at his accustomed table, he found him. Dining alone, much fluttered about by waiters, Reagan sat over his Evening Record. Steele went to a vacant table across the room, from which he could watch the man whom he meant to keep in view as much as possible from now on. Frequently Reagan looked up from his paper to glance keenly about the room as though in search of an expected face; twice he scrawled a note on a leaf from his notebook and handed it to his waiter, who hurried away with it. Once a page, knowing just where to find him, came straight to his table, delivering him a message upon a scrap of paper. Reagan glanced at what was written thereon, folded it, and put it into his pocket. Steele watched him pay his check and light his big fat cigar. Still, as though waiting, Reagan sat at his table.

Not once had he looked directly in Steele's direction. The room was slowly filling with diners; many occupied tables that intervened between the two men. And yet Steele received the impression, which grew into a certainty, that Reagan had seen him and even kept him in view out of the tail of his eye.

A score of guests were filling the entrance from the lobby when Reagan, suddenly seeming hurried, got to his feet. He made his way rapidly among the tables, his big, powerful body and masterful bearing drawing to him the many eyes which always paid tribute to the unusual in the man. Still he did not appear to have noticed Steele, who, all the time, watched him narrowly. So observantly, in fact, that he noted that Reagan's right hand was closed so as to hide something in his palm.

Suddenly Reagan swerved and bore straight down upon Steele. Now there was a look of laughter in the piercing eyes, a look which baffled Steele. Steele looked around curiously; at that moment he noted that among those who were just entering were two men whom he knew well—Johnnie Margrave, a brother worker at Ferguson's, and Lieutenant Kilgore, of the regular police force. Further, he marked how both men were watching not only Reagan intently, but himself as well.

Now Reagan came swiftly to Steele's table. He did not stop, merely pausing for a brief instant. He thrust out his hand; for the second Steele thought he was offering to shake hands, and on the impulse of the moment half put out his own. Briefly Reagan's fingers appeared to grope, to fumble. Then what he held tightly clasped fell to the tablecloth in full view of the room, and Reagan passed on and hurried out without turning. And Steele, briefly uncertain, stared at what Reagan had left behind him. Looking up, he saw that both Margrave and Kilgore had seen the whole thing, and probed into his face for the answer. Reagan had presented him with five crumpled one-hundred-dollar bank notes.

In a flash Steele knew what the thing looked like, what it savored of, and his face went a slow red under the eyes turned upon him. He did perhaps the natural thing: he put his hand over the bank notes as though to hide them. Then he drew back quickly, as though they scorched his flesh, and looked defiantly at Margrave and Kilgore. The two, their expressions altering abruptly from wonder and suspicion to downright disgust, swung about and went out. They had seen enough.

Then Steele sat back, holding himself in check, choking down his heady anger. He had his coffee and cigar, letting the money lie where it was.

“Another trick for King Reagan,” he admitted coolly when at length he recovered his poise. He took up the five hundred dollars and put it into his pocket. “But it cost him five hundred to do it. And this same five hundred I am going to use when it's needed as expense money to get him right.”

The next morning he reported the episode to his chief. Ferguson already knew. Further, listening to Steele's account, he made no attempt to hide his own thoughts. In his look and in his blunt words Steele read more than the vague suspicion of yesterday. To-day Ferguson fully believed that his star man had joined forces with King Reagan.

Steele got to his feet; his eyes went suddenly hard and stern.

“You will accept my resignation, Mr. Ferguson,” he said hotly. “From now on I'm working for Billy Steele.”

“So I imagined,” Ferguson replied dryly.

Steele went out. And from that moment on, if he accomplished nothing else in all the years of his life left to him, he made up his mind to get King Tom Reagan.

II. the show-down

CHAPTER II. THE SHOW-DOWN.

THAT same morning, a little before noon, Billy Steele found a yellow envelope under his door. It was a telegram, and the words were:

MY DEAR BILLY TRIED SEVERAL TIMES TO GET YOU BY PHONE YOU SEEM TO BE KEEPING ON THE JUMP THESE DAYS HAVE YOU A LITTLE TIME FOR AN OLD FRIEND IF SO WILL YOU LUNCH WITH ME AT MY HOME TO-DAY.

TOM REAGAN.

Steele, in no mood for pleasantries from this quarter, crumpled up the message savagely. He strode to his telephone, snatching it up from his table, about to put in a call for Reagan merely for the satisfaction of cursing him. At the last minute he hesitated and altered his purpose. He set the instrument down, glanced at his clock, and ran back down the steps to the street. A passing taxi responded to his signal, and, with the telegram still in his hand, he was on his way to lunch with Reagan.

He knew Reagan's establishment well. For many a time had he and Reagan lunched or dinned together, either at some hotel or in Reagan's own rooms. For Reagan stood apart from other crooks even as he stood apart from, and often above, other men whom Steele knew. He was the quarry of many stern and eager men, and he knew it, and, further, was inclined to look upon the whole thing as a great bit of sport, a game of kings, as he liked to call it. He had said many times frankly to Steele, to Johnnie Margrave, and to Lieutenant Kilgore and perhaps to others: “We're on opposite sides and we're all in it to a finish. But is that any reason we shouldn't appreciate and enjoy one another? You are like hunters out after the big king of the forest; do such hunters have to hate a lion just because they go out gunning for him? Some day, I suppose, I'll get too far out on a limb and somebody will pop me off; I only hope it will be one of you boys, whom I've taken a fancy to, does the job.”

To-day at Reagan's old brownstone home—aforetime it had been the Ruysendyl home—everything was in its customary state of calm order. The beautiful little garden flourished; Nagi, the incomparable Japanese servant, opened the door without keeping Steele waiting and ushered him into the great hallway. Upon the console table stood the usual bowl of violets. At the door of the library Nagi deserted him. King Reagan was sitting in a monster armchair, a book in his hand. He sprang quickly to his feet and came forward, offering his hand, his eyes brightening.

“Good boy, Billy!” he cried heartily. “It was bully of you to come.”

“I thought that it was just as well to come, Reagan,” said Steele quietly. “But I don't know that I care to shake hands.”

“Because of the dirty trick I played on you last night?” and Reagan's laughter was like that of a successful practical joker. “It was a low-lived trick, and I'll admit it, Billy, But anything goes between you and me, doesn't it?”

Steele went to a chair across the table from his host and sat down. Reagan stood where he was, his hands on his hips, looking down at him. In spite of himself, Steele felt rising within him his old admiration of the man; the poise of the powerful and yet graceful body, the frank look of the wide-spaced eyes, the very carriage of the shaggy head inspired approval of the physical man. And when Reagan put himself out to be affable, as he was plainly bent on doing to-day, he was not without a strange charm of personality.

“I'm sorry, Steele,” he said presently with what seemed genuinely sincere regret, “that you won't shake hands. What I tried to do was to hand you a knock-out body blow, but I hoped and rather expected you'd take it the same way I'd take anything you handed me, seeing it's all in the game.” He went to his own chair. “How about the lunch? Will you draw the line at eating with me, too?”

“If there's any business between us, let's get at it,” Steele replied: “Since there's no sense in a man's starving himself, and I'm hungry, I'll eat with you, provided it's understood in the beginning that there's no friendship this time in sharing your salt.”

Reagan frowned. And then, shrugging his massive shoulders, he laughed lightly.

“You're just plain mad, Billy,” he said. “You'll get over that.” And when at his ring Nagi stole silently into the room he ordered sandwiches and coffee and a bottle of brandy sent in to the library.

“How about the five hundred I left on your table, Steele?” Reagan went on presently, the light of banter in his eyes. “So sore you won't even think of keeping that, I suppose? Going to slam it back in my face?”

“No,” answered Steele. “I'm going to keep it. And use it. I figure that the game you worked on me was worth the five hundred to you. It certainly was worth it and considerably more to me!”

“That's sense; you're right there. And of course you count on it going to help defray your expenses in running me down?” He chuckled. “That would be poetic vengeance, wouldn't it? Or by any chance have you decided to let me alone after this? You're out of Ferguson's, aren't you?”

“I'm not out of the game, Reagan. You know it's got to where it is going to be you or me.”

“You're a stubborn devil,” muttered Reagan. He opened a drawer, tossed a box of Steele's favorite Turkish cigarettes on the table, and considered. “Look here; after all can't you see that I wasn't actuated by animosity in what I did at the Newton last night? That, in fact, I merely paid you a mighty pretty compliment? Most of the boys in your profession would have been all puffed up by a thing like that.”

“So it was a compliment, was it?”

“Undoubtedly. When Tom Reagan goes to all that trouble, not to mention the few dollars involved, to rid himself of somebody on his trail, isn't it rather a compliment?”

A second Japanese boy served a light lunch, placing two little tables, one at Steele's elbow, the other at Reagan's, and went out. Reagan suddenly leaned forward, his look grave.

“When it comes on to rain,” he said abruptly, “a man with any brains gets under an umbrella. If it's a big storm, he wants a sturdy roof over him. The storm is coming, Steele. Better get under shelter.”

Steele lifted his brows.

“You're not suggesting buying me out again, are you, Reagan?”

“Well, why not?” demanded Reagan. “Bigger men than you have been bought up, Billy Steele. Yes, by thunder, and by me, too, if you want to know! Why not, I ask you? There's nothing in your game; after years and years of plugging a little thing like last night happens, and where are you? Ferguson, the squarehead, puts you down wrong and you hop off your job; Margrave and Kilgore, both of whom ought to know better, believe their eyes and name you a crook. Stay with the sort of thing you're doing and you'll plug along another bunch of empty years and get nowhere—or you'll stumble close to getting my tag and I'll wipe you off the face of the earth. You're too good a man for a fool's game, Billy. Besides, I like you. Come in now and I'll fill your pockets and pack you off to Paris for a year's vacation. Come alive, man!”

“Another compliment, I suppose?”

“Yes! By Heaven, yes!” Reagan cried passionately. “Do you think I'd talk to you like that unless I thought you were a man?”

“You wouldn't talk to me like that,” Steele told him steadily and with steady eyes, “unless you were about ready to pull a big deal and were afraid I'd spoil it for you.”

“Afraid?” Reagan drummed on the table and his eyes narrowed. “Isn't that the wrong word, Billy?”

Steele knew that it was. Reagan was not afraid, and never would be. Crook and criminal and worse he might be; coward, never.

“There's no use splitting hairs between us,” said Steele. “You know what I mean.”

“Yes,” and Reagan nodded. “I know what you mean. And you've made up your mind not to listen to reason? You won't pull in your horns and come in with me?”

Steele shook his head. Reagan pondered. In the end he sighed.

“I might have known it,” he admitted slowly. “Well, I guess you are right, seeing the game from your own angle. And I suppose I would have been disappointed in you if you had turned your coat. You're a square shooter, Steele, and in my way so am I. At least I never double-crossed a pal, and when you've got my word for anything you can tie to it. Well, let's not get sentimental. You're out to get my scalp, eh?”

“Yes,” Steele replied.

“Then let's forget I insulted you by offering to buy you. I'll not do it again. As you've already said, I've got a big play on now. So, inevitably, things are going to come to a showdown between you and me in pretty short order. Remember I offered you my hand, Billy, and you chose knives.”

“I'll remember,” Steele said quietly.

“Just one little matter,” went on Reagan. “If there are any papers you want to get in order to have everything shipshape in: case anything happened to you, I'd see to them.”

From without came the hum of New York's busy streets; the sunlight flooded the gardens below the library windows; some birds twittered and splashed in the bird fountain to be seen from where Steele sat. Falling athwart such an atmosphere, Reagan's words, with their sinister implication, seemed unreal, a hoax. But Steele, withdrawing his eyes and turning them speculatively upon the man across the table, knew that King Tom Reagan was in earnest.

“You're not trying to scare me off, are you?” he asked curiously.

“No,” said Reagan. “I wish that I thought I could. Going already, Billy? Well, so long.”

“So long,” Steele replied, and went out. And he knew that if he persisted he would be braving death from a man who had caused death to more than one man who stood in his path.

“It's going to be one of us this time,” he muttered when he stood out in the sunshine. And the rest of the day he spent in his room, setting in order all of his worldly affairs.

III. marvella and the jewel

CHAPTER III. MARVELLA AND THE JEWEL.

WHEN Marvella—she had chosen the name for herself—first met King Tom Reagan, Billy Steele was on hand to witness the meeting. And from that moment, having a full view of Reagan's face and reading Reagan's unhidden look, he thought that at last he had an indication of the first step toward the hoped-for undoing of the master criminal. For it was Steele's good fortune to know much of Marvella Nevil—the surname, too, by the way and for less sentimental and more practical reasons had been hand-picked after other worn-out names had served their purpose and been discarded—and of her record, while it devolved later that she danced into King Reagan's knowledge for the first time that night.

That Steele should have been in a place where he could observe their meeting was due not in the least to chance, but altogether to his persistence in keeping his quarry in sight as much as possible. To-night he had followed him from his own home to his club; thereafter to the Delmere for dinner. He saw Reagan take his chair; he marked how Reagan's eyes began their customary swift survey of the room. And in this case he knew that Reagan had not seen him. For the keen, questing eyes, before ever they traveled to that part of the dining room where Steele sat, had found Marvella.

Steele knew that Reagan had never been a man to lose his head over a woman; in all Reagan's past career, which he knew, there had never entered a woman. The look now in Reagan's eyes told Steele of a man who after long years sees the Wonder Woman. In his heart he must have dreamed dreams; now in a brief daze of amazement he saw his dreamings materialized in Marvella Nevil.

“I didn't know Marvella was in New York,” mused Steele as he looked back and forth between the two persons whose destinies he saw on the verge of commingling. “If those two joined forces—what a combination!”

Marvella Nevil was of that rare type of woman, who, seen only once and even casually, insists upon creating a vivid and lasting impression. Here was a superlative beauty as unquestioned as the beauty of the loveliest orchid. Steele had seen her the first time some three years before, at a time when she was under suspicion of heading a shrewd organization that was smuggling diamonds from Europe into New York via the long route through China. A case on which he had been working at the time promised to implicate her, but in the end left her unmolested. He had had one brief interview with her which he had not forgotten. A second time he had seen her one night at the opera when he was with Adolf Blair, the artist. Blair, on seeing her, had started violently, and Steele had felt the positive thrill through the man's shoulder as his careless eyes found her and rested on her in an astonishment that was little short of adoration.

“Good heavens,” Blair had said sharply. “Who is that woman?” And then, rushing on without tarrying for an answer, speaking under his breath in a sort of awed whisper: “I'd give a thousand dollars for the chance to get her down on canvas!”

Well, Steele did not laugh at Blair. Nor did he so much as smile at the burning enthusiasm, for it was natural for an artist like Blair to long for so striking a model as Marvella Nevil. The woman at the time had been only a few weeks in New York, and already the city, or at least that part of it which knew her, was quite willing to go mad over her. Upon this woman now were the eyes of King Reagan bent.

Blair might have made a fair image of Marvella; words are too cold for the beginning of the task. She. made one think somehow of dusky twilight in some “far-off corner of the South Seas,” if ever there were a setting to do her justice.

Now Reagan's was no light, passing interest; Steele was sure of that. The man was fascinated and did not care the snap of his big, powerful fingers who knew. For a long time he sat regarding her intently. Marvella was alone, just beginning her solitary dinner. Now and then she nodded and smiled as some acquaintance passed; a party entered and two of the men hung on their heels a moment to greet her, while Marvella rewarded them with a brilliant smile. Then it was, as the two men moved on to rejoin their companions, that Reagan sprang to his feet. Immediately Steele knew what he was going to do. Reagan knew one of these men who had spoken to Marvella, and within two minutes he himself had been introduced. And now no longer was Marvella dining alone. Reagan, his back toward Steele, was her dinner partner.

Steele, taking that Reagan did not see him, got up then and hurried to the Western Union desk. In code he wrote a message to Chet Andrews, San Francisco. Decoded the message read: