This time it was to be Paul who was to formulate a plan. It was of such a dark and criminal nature that even Herbert Balcom, hardened as he was himself, was for the moment appalled at his son's temerity. But as he listened to Paul's words they fascinated him and he leaned forward the better to take in the scheme.
As Paul and his father planned, it seemed that here was power unlimited, wealth beyond all counting and without the possibility of discovery. For, like most men of his caliber, the approbation of the community was dear to Balcom.
"Good, Paul!" approved Balcom. "Go to it at once."
Paul looked keenly at his father.
"Haven't you anything to add?"
"No, I have nothing to advise. The scheme is perfect, and as you conceived it you can also execute it. The best of luck to you, my boy."
A few moments later Paul went out, his dark face beaming at being reinstated in his father's good graces. He was full of his plan.
Down in one of the city's worst sections and near the river-front there stood an old ramshackle building. Why it had not been condemned by the building inspectors was a mystery. But it stood in all its squalid ugliness. The door and the windows were locked and shuttered. One could see at a glance that the building had been long unused.
There was an alley strewn with tin cans and other refuse leading to the back of the house, and it was down a flight of broken brick steps that Old Meg, the fortune-teller, had her den where through the superstitions of those inhabiting the neighborhood she managed to eke out a miserable existence. The interior of the den was unspeakably filthy. The furniture consisted of a broken-down couch, a chest of drawers in a like condition, a card-table, a few kitchen chairs, and some boxes. Most of the panes in the windows had been broken and the empty spaces had been covered with old newspapers. Consequently, a candle thrust into an old wine-bottle supplied the only real light.
At the table, idly shuffling a pack of grimy cards, sat Old Meg, a horrible old hag, wrinkled in face like a mummy, with only the stumps of teeth which had more the appearance of tusks. Her unkempt hair was matted and ugly wisps of it hung down over her bleary eyes. For clothes she wore an old-fashioned faded gingham wrapper and around her shoulders a dirty torn shawl. On her feet was a pair of man's shoes, many sizes too large, which had evidently been cast away as useless by some former owner, himself squalid. These she managed to keep on by tying the tops with wrapping-cord. A more unlovely human being it would have been hard to find in all the great city. There she sat, crooning a ballad to herself in a high, cracked voice. It sounded like an incantation.