HOW LONDON BILL TOOK A PAL
Perhaps the golden rule of all detective work is, Never let the detected one detect. Inspector Val was alive to this ordinance of his craft, and an hour later, when Storri cautiously emerged from the drain, he met neither sign nor sound of Inspector Val and Mr. Duff. Feeling sure that his exploration had not been observed, Storri wended homeward to his rooms, his chin sunk in meditation.
Storri the next day went to New York, and immediately on arrival at that hotel which he designed to honor with his custom he sprang into a hansom, and within ten minutes was at a private-detective agency, being the one whereat he aforetime procured those spies to set about the Harley house—spies long since withdrawn. The head of this detective bureau was a coarse-visaged, brandy-blotched man named Slater.
"And so," observed Mr. Slater, following a statement of Storri's errand, "you want to be put next to a 'peter-man, what we call a box-worker?"
"I would like to meet the best in the business," said Storri; "one also who is acquainted with others in his line, and who can be relied upon to the death."
"You want something desperate, eh?" said Mr. Slater, in a tone of suspicion. "Might I ask whether you have a safe to blow or a crib to crack on your own private account? I'm a cautious man, myself," he concluded, with a harsh chuckle, "and like to know what I'm getting mixed up with."
"Your caution is to be commended," returned Storri, "and I'll answer freely. No, I've no one to rob, no safe to break open. The truth is, I want to prosecute a search for a certain criminal, and I think a man of the stamp I wish to meet could help me more than a regular detective whose person is known and who would be instantly suspected. I'm not looking to arrest, but only to find a certain man. I shall pay him to whom you send me for his trouble, and you for putting me in touch with him."
"It's an irregular thing to do," remarked Mr. Slater, "but I see no harm."
Mr. Slater rang a bell and asked for Mr. Norris.
"Norris," said Mr. Slater, "this party wants to be put next to London Bill—wants to be made solid with Bill. That's as far as you go."
"All right," said Mr. Norris. Then addressing Storri: "If you come now, I think I can locate your man in fifteen minutes."
Storri and Mr. Norris drove to a doggery near the East River, in the vicinity of James Slip. It was called the Albion House. The lower floor was a bar-room, and two or three sinister-looking characters lounged about the room. Mr. Norris ordered beer; then he leaned across to the barman and whispered a question.
"Why, yes," returned the barman, looking hard at Mr. Norris as though to read his errand, "Bill's been here. But it's on the square; he ain't doin' nothin'. I don't think he's seein' company neither."
"This is on the level, Dan," said Mr. Norris, who appeared to be on terms of acquaintance with the barman. "Let me make you known to Mr. Brown," he continued, introducing Storri. "Now here's all there is to it. Mr. Brown thinks Bill can put him wise to a party he's got business with. There's no pinch goes with it, and Mr. Brown's willing to do the handsome."
"Well," replied the barman doubtfully, "if Bill's about, I'll see what he thinks himself." With this, the barman, who was a brutal specimen with lumpy shoulders and a nose that had seen better days, called one of the loungers to preside in his stead, and retired through a door to the rear. He returned in a moment saying that Bill would see the caller, and jerked his stubby thumb in the direction of a back room.
"This is a boozing ken for hold-up people," explained Mr. Norris in a whisper, as he and Storri obeyed the hint tendered by the barman's thumb. "That bar-keep, Dan, used to be a strong-arm man himself; but since he's got this joint, he doesn't do any work, and has turned fall-guy for a fleet that operates along the Bowery."
Storri knew nothing of "strong-arm men," and "fall-guys," and "fleets," but he put no questions, and only seemed intent on meeting London Bill.
In the rear room that formidable outlaw was discovered seated at a table. He was alone, and evidently had just come from upstairs, as a door leading to the stairway was ajar. Mr. Norris presented Storri to London Bill, and, this social ceremony over, made few words of it before withdrawing altogether, leaving Storri and his new friend to themselves.
"Suppose we drink something," said London Bill, in noncommittal tones.
Storri ordered beer in a bottle, cork untouched; Storri had heard of knockout mixtures, and did not care to make his advent into upper criminal circles in the rôle of victim. London Bill grinned in a wise way, but made no comment, calling for gin himself.
"What is it?" said London Bill, after the gin had appeared and disappeared; "what's the argument you want to hand me?"
"I don't care to talk here," observed Storri, glancing suspiciously at the walls within touch of his hand. "Let us go outside."
"That's it," observed London Bill; "now if we was to go plantin' ourselves in Union Square, or any little open-air place like that, it's ten to one some Bull from the Central Office would come along an' spot us. They're onto my mug; got it in the gallery in fact."
"We can't talk here," said Storri decidedly.
"Wait a minute," suggested London Bill, who it was clear had grown curious as to Storri's errand, "I think I can fix the thing." He stepped into the bar and returned with a key. "Come on," said he; "there's an empty hall upstairs that ought to do us. It's as big as a rink."
London Bill led the way up the foul, creaking stairs, and opened a door on the top floor. It was a room the bigness of the building, and had been used for dancing. Drawing a couple of wooden chairs to a front window, Storri's guide motioned him to a seat.
"Here we be," he said; "now what's it all about?"
Storri, nothing backward when assured that no one was playing eavesdropper, began to talk, carefully avoiding his usual jerky Russian mannerisms. You have been told of Storri's graphic clearness of statement, once he had fully perfected the outlines of some enterprise. In fifteen minutes, but only in vaguest way, he laid his proposal before London Bill; the proposal was so framed that the 'peter-man understood no more than that a bank of unusual richness was to be broken into, and his aid was sought.
"Your share alone," whispered Storri, "will foot up for a million."
London Bill's little black eyes twinkled like those of a rat. He didn't make reply at once, but looked out of the grimy, cobwebby pane at the sky. The face of London Bill was rough, but not unpleasant, and, though he had killed his man and was a desperate individual if cornered, the only trait expressed was a patient capacity for enterprises that might require days or even weeks in their carrying out.
"Don't you think now you're a bit of a come-on?" observed London Bill, swinging around to Storri from his survey of the distant heavens.
"Why?" asked Storri, as cool as the other.
"This is why," returned London Bill. "Here you butt in, a dead stranger, and make a proposition. Suppose I was to rap?"
"I'd declare that you lied," replied Storri cheerfully, "and no one with sense would believe you. They would say that if I intended to ask your help in such work as I have described, I wouldn't seek an introduction through a detective agency."
"Something in that," said London Bill, a gleam of admiration in his beady gimlet eye. "Well, I never squeal, an' only put the question to try you out. Go on, an' tell me what it is an' where it is; whether I go into the job or not, at least you've nothin' to be leary of in me."
Storri, who had been studying London Bill as hard as ever that cracksman was studying him, re-began in earnest. He now laid bare the proposal in its every corner, and showed London Bill the plans and maps, including the valuable cross-section drawing that displayed the relation of the Treasury Building to street levels. London Bill, who appeared to have gifts as an engineer, bent over the maps and drawings, considering and measuring distances.
"What sort of ground is this?" said London Bill, laying a finger on the cross-section drawing, where it was painted dove-color as showing the earth beneath the street; "is it clay or sand?"
"Gray clay," returned Storri, "and fairly hard and dry."
"Good," remarked London Bill; "no fear of caving." Recurring to the drawings, London Bill proceeded: "It'll take two months to dig that tunnel. I'll have to dip as I go in, in order to creep beneath the footstones of the sidewall; then I'll bring the tunnel up on a long slant. The tunnel should be four feet high and about three wide; the earth I'd throw into the sewer, the water would wash it away. There's no risk in digging the tunnel, as no one would get an inkling of what's afoot until the last shove, when we made direct for the money. On that point let me ask: How long can we count on being undisturbed after we've got to the gold? Now if it was a bank, we'd time the play for Saturday afternoon after closing hours; that would give us until Monday morning at nine before they'd tumble."
